Alwaght- Turkish foreign policy under over two decades of Erdogan and his party's rule has witnessed many surprise shifts motivated by the status of the international system, internal, regional, and international developments, and the approach of country's leaders to advancing the national interests. This approach to regulation of the foreign policy is known as ‘tightrope walk’ amid growing West-East competition, where Turkey's strategically important position enables Erdogan and his strategists to enjoy interests with both East and West without seriously harming relations with each of them. Actually, since late 2010s, Turkey had systemically been pursuing a policy to present itself as a power zealous for strategic independence in international affairs and, in other words, has been seeking more maneuvering space in its relations with big powers.
A set of factors played a role in this trend. On the one hand, Turkey experienced the Eurozone crisis and political and economic instability in Central and Eastern Europe, and on the other hand, it faced the political and geopolitical consequences of the Arab uprisings. At the same time, the balance of power among non-regional actors in the region also began to change. The US focused more on containing China in the Asia-Pacific region, while the European Union distanced itself from developments in the West Asia due to its problems. On the contrary, Russia's willingness to engage in West Asian and North African developments increased, and China also increasingly focused on these regions to bolster its influence and launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a world-scale infrastructure project it presented in 2013.
Now, as some observers hold, Ukraine war has changed the circumstances, making lines of East-West polarization more and more highlighted. But this situation makes the conditions highly difficult for rope walkers like Turkey. Pieces of evidence indicate that the relations with the West are moving to improvement with the beginning of the new 5-year term of Erdogan's presidency. Just contrary to his verbal attacks on the Westerners during his election campaign, during the past few weeks from his new government he tended to soften his tone and broaden cooperation with the West.
In this relation, the NATO summit in Lithuania last week is of special significance. In the days leading to the summit, Ankara in a symbolic gesture showing its alignment with the NATO handed over Ukraine’s Azov commanders to Kiev without consultation or agreement with Russia, despite the fact that they were freed from the Russian army's encirclement and transferred to Turkey under the condition of not being transferred to Ukraine. Russia described the move a “stab in the back” and Kremlin severely lashed out at Erdogan’s disloyalty.
On the other side, Turkey, which has already taken strict stances against Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership and set various conditions in return for a green light, overnight shifted its opinion without any specific privileges from the US or the EU and only clung to the mirage of EU accession while the talks with the bloc have been on hold since 2005 and even the most optimistic officials in Ankara see opening EU doors to Turkey in near future unimaginable. Analysts suggest that in addition to visa-free travels to EU states for Turkish citizens, Erdogan demands closer trade ties and arrangements with the bloc, even if this does not lead to official membership of the EU.
This is the fundamental motivation that analysts say is driving Turkey's desire to improve relations with the West. Before the presidential election, Erdogan was grappling with a chaotic economic situation, especially the skyrocketing inflation and lira value slump, and the bad economic situation even worsened after the February earthquake. These circumstances caused Turkey not to afford foreign adventures, and, on the contrary, pushed Erdogan to de-escalate and seek attraction of foreign investment.
Ukraine war was one of the factors distancing Turkey from the economic improvement prospects Erdogan had earlier promised for mid-2022. In fact, the consequences of the war in Ukraine ruined Ankara's plans to beat external debt crisis by increasing exports and stabilizing the value of the national currency. Russia and Ukraine were Turkey's main economic partners in trade, agriculture, energy, defense industry, and most importantly, tourism. Tourism is a vital source of foreign exchange earnings for Turkey. The war dashed Ankara's hopes of returning to pre-pandemic conditions in 2022. Rallying energy prices also affected Turkey, as every $10 increase in oil prices increases Turkey's current account deficit by $5 billion. Disruption in the supply chain and foreign payments from and to Russia also created more economic problems for Ankara. Additionally, Turkey's textile industry, which was heavily dependent on Russian and Ukrainian customers, was the most affected by Ukraine trade routes blockade.
Now, Erdogan, who thanks to his good fortune survived the election swamp, finds improving relationship with the West as the only way to settle challenges, especially that even the Arab petrodollars are inadequate to solve the country's economic predicament. Galip Dalay, an expert at Chatham House think tank, believes that in recent years the frayed ties with the West have undermined flow of investment capital to Turkey, and that one of the main motivations of shift to the West is a goal to get rid of recession and reinvigorate investment.
But while Turkey intends to show that rejuvenated relations with the West will not harm ties with Russia, the developments in recent weeks proved otherwise. This week, Moscow threatened to withdraw from the grain export agreement due to other side reneging on commitment to facilitate Russian grain and fertilizer exports. Also, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that there are currently no plans for a meeting between Putin and Erdogan. Turkey was the main mediator of last year's agreement between Russia and Ukraine on the establishment of a safe corridor for grain exports.
Also, while before the elections Moscow agreed a delay of payment of Turkey's $4 billion gas bill to Russia to avoid pressures on the hard currency-strapped Turkish economy, the Russians may no longer agree to another delay. Moreover, Russia has key presence in some of Turkey's strategic industries like nuclear power plants and defense sector despite NATO’s insistence on Ankara's scale-down of partnership with Moscow.
