Alwaght- Over the past year, Turkey experienced highly tangible and important changes in its foreign relations with other countries, especially in the Arab world. One example of these changes is the efforts to improve ties with the Persian Gulf Arab states.
In the years following the 2011 uprisings in the Arab world, relations between Turkey as the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (MP) front in the region and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as leaders of an opposite axis, went chilly due to geopolitical competitions across the Arab and Muslim worlds, till mid-2021 when the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he eyed friendship and decrease in the hostilities of the past period. These remarks marked the start of an Ankara's diplomatic campaign to defuse tensions with Arab states, and the Israeli regime as well.
If we consider degrees for the political dispute of Ankara with other states, the UAE should be seen the top enemy of the MB and Erdogan, as confrontations between the two sides in important cases such as the Libyan crisis, the Sudan uprising, the crisis caused by Saudi-led blockade on Qatar in 2017, the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, and a failed coup against Erdogan himself in 2016 were quite obvious.
Now, after turning to reviving relations with the Persian Gulf countries amid biting economic crisis in Turkey and the slump in lira price and raging inflation, Erdogan visited the UAE in Wednesday, hoping for an exit from the economic predicament with assistance from former enemies. In comments showing his full breaking with the past, he said he supports the UAE and the whole (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council.
"As Turkey, we do not separate the security and stability of the UAE and our other brothers in the [Persian] Gulf region from the security and stability of our own country," Erdogan said in a op-ed in the Emirati English-language daily Khaleej Times.
The importance of these remarks at the present time is mostly due to the retaliatory drone and missile attacks of the Yemeni forces deep into the UAE and before that Saudi Arabia, and the inability and desperation of these countries— both leading a devastating aggression on Yemen since 2015— to repel these attacks or force Sana'a to stop them.
Ankara security support to Persian Gulf sheikhdoms: Real or empty promise?
The first thing that should be taken into account about Erdogan's promises of support to the security of the Persian Gulf states and specifically the UAE is checking the possibility of realization of such promises given Turkey's political realities, its capacities, and its limitations .
Turkey is one of the countries that joined the club of the few world powers that have contributed to the Persian Gulf security with the establishment of a permanent military base in Qatar in 2016 and the presence of 3,000 Turkish troops in it. The Turkish military presence as a regional rival, instead of boosting security and stability, increased tensions with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, eventually leading to the crisis with Qatar and blockaders setting closure of the Turkish base as a precondition to reconcile with Doha. This indirectly led countries such as Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait to rely more on Ankara's support. In 2017, security and defense relations between Kuwait and Turkey increased rapidly, and the two sides even signed a joint defense pact in 2019 aimed at strengthening military cooperation. The agreement was a big change in their military relations. Also, in 2018, Turkish Aerospace Industries saw a considerable increase in its exports to Oman. Thanks to a deal with Turkish FNSS Savunma Sistemleri A.Ş. military manufacturer, Oman became one of the biggest importers of the Turkish defense products. According Turkey Exporters Assembly (TIM), the Turkish defense exports to Oman passed $13 million in 2017 to $153 million in 2018.
Such a trend has effectively led to a split in the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council and a downturn in the hegemony of the Saudi-Emirati alliance over the council's policies. The Emiratis did not limit their dissatisfaction to Ankara's role in the Persian Gulf region but extended it to the Turkish military intervention in Syria, its southern neighbor. Last January, ex-UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash revealed that the UAE's official position was to oppose Turkey's efforts to establish a safe zone in northern Syria. This is in line with the extensive efforts of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to counter Turkey's growing influence across the region in recent years. In recent years, changes in the perception of the threat and security orientation of several countries of the Cooperation Council have played an important role in shaping their relations with Turkey. For example, the fact that the UAE and Bahrain have taken steps towards rapprochement with Syria, a branch of the rival Axis of Resistance, and at the same time have not been happy with the lifting of the siege on Qatar explain how these two countries assess the threats of their environment.
Driven by the same view that considers a threat the Turkish military presence and partnerships in the Persian Gulf, the Saudis are not fans of Turkey expanding its presence in the region and they mainly focus on settling their foreign policy crises, on top of them Yemen war case. Riyadh seems to plan playing Ankara to bolster its front in the face of Sana'a, even if this takes moving closer to an enemy.
On the other side, for Turkey, Yemen war is not a diving board into a big and costly war but a bridge to political closeness to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to win their trust for investment in its economy and other privileges.
Turkish foreign policy balance disturbance
While getting actively involved in regional cases from Central Asia and Caucasus to West Asia and Horn of Africa to create a breathing room and build immunity to threats, Ankara tries to make sure these policy shifts would not undermine its regional and international positions and alliances. For example, while it seeks normalization with the Israeli regime, it insists improved ties with Tel Aviv would not influence support to the Palestinian groups. But no matter how much it insists on continuation of supports to allies, the sudden shift in relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and even Egypt disappoints its allies, for example the MB, about Ankara's commitments to them.
By adopting a policy of support to the aggression countries in Yemen war and motivating the Arab coalition to continue the fruitless but criminal war, Erdogan only makes impossible reaching his eyed foreign policy balance and weakens Turkey's position in the Muslim world.
