Turkish President Recep Tayyip 0Erdogan’s increasingly assertive foreign policy is rankling Western allies and scaring away investors — but few analysts expect him to slow down, reports AFP.
Critics accuse Erdogan of whipping up patriotism in a bid to shore upsupport after bitter municipal election losses last year saw his rivals winin Ankara and Istanbul.
The government counters that Turkey is defending its interests in avolatile region against unfriendly nations such as the United Arab Emiratesand Egypt.
Erdogan softened some of his most strident rhetoric and made a rareoverture to Western partners after the scale of Turkey’s financial problemsforced him to shake up his economic team earlier this month.
Yet Turkish troops and military advisers are still fanned out from Syria toLibya, causing consternation in capitals across Europe and Washington. Erdogan is also challenging rival Greece in the eastern Mediterranean andthrowing down the gauntlet to Russia by backing Azerbaijan in its victoriouswar with Armenia over the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Analysts say this might help Erdogan attract voters in the short term —but not foreign investors who can help the flagging economy revive and thrivein the years to come.
Erdogan’s foreign policy is “creating huge uncertainty about Turkey,” saidWashington’s German Marshall Fund fellow KadriTastan.
It creates a “combative relationship with Turkey’s main economic partners,the EU and the US,” SinanUlgen of Istanbul’s Centre for Economics andForeign Policy Studies agreed.
“Turkey’s trade and investment relationships are essentially with these twoeconomic hubs.”
One of the main points of friction with the European Union involvesTurkey’s search for natural gas in disputed waters near Cyprus and Greece.
The bloc warned last month that Turkey could face “immediate” sanctions ifit continued. The next EU leaders’ summit is on December 10-11.
Erdogan appeared to extend an olive branch to Brussels last Saturday,insisting that “we don’t see ourselves anywhere but in Europe”.
France responded that it preferred to see Turkey change its behaviour thanhear Erdogan’s “soothing declarations”.
Turkey began talks to join the EU in 2005 but the process has beeneffectively frozen because of Europe’s ever-growing concerns about Erdogan’srule.
Erdogan’s softer tone also included a promise of judicial reform thatfollowed Joe Biden’s election as US president.
Biden represents a potential problem following Erdogan’s friendship withDonald Trump, who never made Turkey’s deteriorating rights record a top-lineconcern.
Greece and Egypt in particular are hoping Biden will take on a more activerole to resolve the Mediterranean crisis.
Turkey also faces the threat of US sanctions after its controversialpurchase of Russia’s advanced S-400 anti-missile systems, especially afterBiden’s win.
“There is therefore a high risk Turkish-US relations will reach a new lowin 2021,” VeriskMaplecroft risk consultancy analyst Anthony Skinner said.
Erdogan’s foreign policy push intensified after he survived a 2016attempted coup, when he felt “left alone by traditional partners in theWest”, said Sinem Adar, an associate at the Centre for Applied Turkey Studiesin Berlin.
Erdogan believes “Turkey can no longer trust Europe and the US to supportits security,” she added, pointing to a speech he gave in October 2016defending his campaigns against Kurdish targets in Syria and northern Iraq.
“We will henceforth protect the right of this nation with a tit-for-tatfight in the field and with a seat at the table, if need be,” Erdogan said.
And again last month, Erdogan complained of “a blatant attempt to putTurkey under siege” that involves “crisis points from Syria to theMediterranean to the Caucasus”.
Turkey has poured hundreds of millions of dollars developing its owndefences, which Adar said meant that it can now engage in multiple fronts.
“That is an enabling factor of this increasing aggressiveness,” she toldAFP.
“The boundaries between domestic politics and foreign policy have becomeincreasingly blurred.”
This approach has compounded the pain of a Turkish economy that analystsbelieve has been mismanaged for years.
The lira has lost about a quarter of its value against the dollar since thestart of 2020 and annual inflation hovers at around 12 percent.
“Rising geopolitical risk puts pressure on the domestic currency,” Ulgensaid, and also “affects portfolio flows as well as foreign directinvestments.”
Foreign direct investments — money that goes into creating jobs bybuilding factories and helping grow existing businesses — fell to $8.7billion last year from a peak of $22 billion in 2007, according to World Bankdata.
The majority of this investment comes from Europe, Tastan said.
One example came last year when Germany’s Volkswagen postponed a decisionon whether to build a new factory in Turkey after the Turkish offensive innorthern Syria.
It ultimately cancelled the plans in July because of the coronaviruspandemic.
