Turkey has recently reiterated its desire to expand its influence in neighbouring territories, and it is not about Northern Syria at all. Experts are divided: some believe that Ankara is looking for access to expensive natural resources, but others believe that this is an attempt by Erdoğan to implement projects to enlarge Turkey territorially.
Cyprus problem
Turkey does not want to “spend another 60 years” to solve the Cyprus problem, Fahrettin Altun, head of the Turkish Presidential Administration’s Liaison Office, said last week. He offered his own version of its solution: instead of trying to somehow force Greeks and Turks to live in the same state – give each nation a state. “It is time to recognise the reality on the ground: the existence of two separate peoples and two separate states on the island of Cyprus,” he said.
Cyprus has been home to a Greek and Turkish population for centuries. The ethnic conflicts that erupted on the island in the second half of the 20th century led to the invasion of northern Cyprus by the Turkish army in 1974. Since 1983, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), unrecognised by anyone but Turkey, has existed on this territory. This is the Cyprus problem, which Fahrettin Altun proposes to solve by recognising the TRNC by the international community.
And this is by no means the opinion of a Turkish official. Firstly, Fahrettin Altun’s job is to tell the views of Turkish President Recep Erdoğan. Secondly, similar thoughts are now being expressed by other Turkish officials. “From now on, we will continue to strive for a just solution to the Cyprus issue, especially the recognition of the TRNC,” Turkish Defence Minister Yaşar Güler said.
These statements, of course, can also be seen simply as further proof of Turkey’s “broken relations” with the EU. For many years, the EU has been demanding from Ankara a solution to the Cyprus issue as a precondition for Turkey’s membership in the EU. And by solution it meant a simple transfer of the territories of Northern Cyprus under the control of Southern (i.e. Greek) Cyprus. And if now Turkey no longer needs the EU, there is no reason to make any compromises on Cyprus.
Turkey’s main motives
Ankara may have other considerations. Turkey’s main motive is economic. It needs control over the shelf of the northern part of Cyprus. If the island is divided, it will not be the shelf of Cyprus, but the shelf of Northern Cyprus (Turkish), analysts believe. And on this shelf there are significant gas fields, which Turkey is now trying to drill and for which it is under EU sanctions.
However, to the greatest extent, we have before us evidence of a sharp intensification of Turkish foreign policy expansion, which has moved to a qualitatively new level – from the use of economic instruments to territorial expansion.
Ideologically, this expansion is based on three pillars – pan-Islamism (Turkey is positioned as the leader of all Muslims), neo-Ottomanism (restoration of the country’s influence in the former Ottoman Empire) and pan-Turkism (Turkey is the leader of all Turkic peoples). The latter two were most actively promoted.
The main message of these ideologies is generalising. Bringing the countries closer to the modern Turkish state. In form, however, they are different, as well as in geography. Turkey uses Neo-Ottomanism and Pan-Turkism as geopolitical strategies of influence in different regions. While pan-Turkism serves as a tool to expand influence in Central Asia, neo-Ottomanism is used to strengthen its position in the Arab countries and the Balkans, analysts said.
Erdoğan’s plans about Middle East
Until recently, Turkey promoted its interests there through the economy, but now the Turkish economy is in systemic crisis. On the other hand, Ankara’s success in overthrowing Bashar al-Assad and expanding the zone of occupation in Northern Syria gave rise to the Turkish authorities’ hopes that it is possible to expand their influence through territories.
And now Recep Erdoğan is openly nostalgic for the borders of the Middle East before the First World War. For example, he says that if not for that war, Aleppo, Hama, Damascus and Raqqa would be Turkish territories. That said, it is possible that some of them would be – Turkish experts massively say that the zone of occupation in Syria should not only be preserved, but expanded.
Therefore, it is possible that the attempt to get Northern Cyprus recognised, to take control of Northern Syria – these are not individual opportunistic steps, but exactly what Erdoğan’s new strategy is. A strategy to maximise his influence on neighbouring territories. If he succeeds – up to and including annexation.
Now both Ottomanism and Pan-Turkism are an attempt to extract some ideological wrapper from the past for Turkey’s enlargement projects. If this is indeed the case, one of the beneficiaries of this expansionist strategy could be Russia for a number of reasons.
First, not all Arab countries are happy about the rise of neo-Ottomanism. They remember the period of Ottoman rule without any nostalgia – the Ottomans oppressed the local Arab population in every possible way. Therefore, the more active Turkey is, the more it will consolidate the Middle East against itself. This means that both it and the Middle Eastern countries will have to establish relations with Russia, the most important security guarantor and arms supplier.
Second, not all Central Asian countries will be happy about the activation of pan-Turkism. Under this ideology, Turkey claims that there are no Kazakhs or Uzbeks, but rather Kazakh and Uzbek Turks, who should be deprived of their own language and history and then assimilated as Turks, turning their countries into Turkish colonies.
Until recently, Turkey managed to carry out some activities within the framework of pan-Turkism in these countries (for example, to promote the idea of a single alphabet), but the local elites made such concessions because they wanted to receive Turkish investments and diversify their foreign policy. Now that Turkey has little money and Ankara’s foreign policy is becoming increasingly aggressive, interest in pan-Turkism will clearly wane, which will better protect Russian interests in Central Asia.
Finally, thirdly, it is favourable for Russia that Turkey’s passionarity is wasted on basically unattainable goals. That is, pan-Turkism and neo-Ottomanism.
In modern conditions, both are utopias. Ottomanism is banally historically outdated. Pan-Turkism does not take into account the realities – the same Turks and Uzbeks have to communicate through interpreters, as the differences in languages are hardly greater than between Russian and Bulgarian.
This is especially important in the case of pan-Turkism, on the basis of which Turkey is now trying to create its own Eurasian integration project. Which, by the way, is a competitor to the Russian one. For all its difficulties, the Russian project is based not on some ideology of subordination, but on the economic component. And as long as the Turks are chasing outdated ideological stamps, Russia will have time to remove all the difficulties from its integration project.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Abd al-Latif Ghulam for Head-Post.com
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