Can Erdoğan forge a new bromance with Trump? His future may depend on it | Paul Taylor
![Can Erdoğan forge a new bromance with Trump? His future may depend on it | Paul Taylor Can Erdoğan forge a new bromance with Trump? His future may depend on it | Paul Taylor](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/efd95d0bd421a7497be4db6f9d7ef8826e50d3dd/0_0_2781_1668/master/2781.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=f7837a90d907ee4d6c80aef540fc343f)
PECEP Tayyip Erdogan blocked a thin line between the West, Russia and China for more than two decades. Turkey has benefited from the help of both sides in Russia’s war against Ukraine, and expanded its military arrival and impact in Syria, Libya, the South Caucasus, the eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf, its soft power in Africa, Central Asia and the West of the Balkans, and the national defense industry built great.
When international relations experts evaluate this, they often return to the term “law balance”. Turkish analysts prefer to talk about seeking to obtain “strategic self -government” – the ability to defend the country’s interests against all threats without relying on any external force.
But in Trump’s second era, can Erdogan maintain his geopolitical acrobatic merits and pound? A Braom between two powerful people Trump’s recent state was distinguished, but there was also a series of clashes and misunderstanding that was wearing deep confidence between Türkiye and the United States.
“This is it [Erdogan’s] Aaron Stein, a Turkish specialist who is the head of the US Foreign Policy Research Institute, said, Modern European political center It happened. He said that the relationship is now a stable stability relationship, and while the two countries are no longer well compatible, “there is no fracture in the NATO link.”
Under Donald Trump’s first management, the United States Türkiye expelled the pioneering F35 fighter federation After Ankara challenged Washington by purchasing an advanced air defense system from Russia.
For his part, Erdogan accused the United States He houses and incites God GulenAnd a Turkish Islamic preacher in Pennsylvania, in which he blamed for a 2016 coup attempt that almost toppled him. Gulen died last year and removed one irritation.
At one point, Trump publicly He threatened to destroy Türkiye’s economy If Erdogan sent forces to Syria to attack the US -backed Kurdish forces, which Ankara considers a branch of the PKK, its most deadly local enemy.
However, Erdogan was one of the world leaders who welcomed Trump’s second victory in the elections more enthusiastic, while Trump described the authoritarian Turkish leader as a friend and expressed his admiration for Turkey’s role in help Haya Tarr al -Sham, backed by Turkish (HTS) In December.
There are chances and picnic of Turkey in the return of an American male leader who is less likely than Joe Biden to keep Erdogan in the quarantine because of his worn out human rights record and freedom of the media and the capture of the state, but it may be more striking in his hostility to Israel and Hamas support.
Erdogan has never been welcomed at the White House under the leadership of Biden and the relationships were lukewarm, while Trump is still receiving his phone calls. The new administration realizes that Türkiye, a central nation that includes 85 million people in a strategic location on hinges EuropeAsia and the Middle East, which controls reaching the Black Sea, has become a self -confident power, with an influence from Central Asia to Africa and the Arab world.
Although the refusal to join Western sanctions against Russia because of its war in Ukraine, and recently Umplyas requests to join the BRICS A group of emerging non -Western forces dominated by Moscow and Beijing, Turkey remains installed in the West as a member of NATO and an eternal candidate, if not, to the European Union membership.
On the positive side, Turkish and first experts see an opportunity to lie down to the conflict of the conflict over the Russian S-400 missiles. There will be a potential compromise to secure the Russian group that was moved in storage on the Incirlik Airbase base where the US Air Force has one of the largest concentrations in the Middle East. in contrast , Washington will raise arms sanctions against Türkiye And sold it F35s, although it is not clear whether Ankara, who is developing its combat aircraft, is now keen to join the program.
There may also be an opportunity for the United States and turkey To collaborate closely in Syria, where they have been on the heads of Logbars since Washington provided support to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish militia in northeastern Syria, which Ankara says it says is sorted by the PKK. Stein described this “final sin” alliance in the eyes of Turkish.
As part of his efforts to break the “Forever Wars” in the Middle East, Trump tried to no avail in his first term to withdraw the American special forces operating along with SDF against Islanic State Syria.
Relations with eternal regional competition returned in a constructive stage after Erdogan threatened to bomb the Turkish Sea neighbor during his last presidential campaign.
Ankara also complied with a secret Warnings from the US Treasury To reduce the activities of banks suspected to help the Russian oligarshin who are punished for transporting money abroad and facilitating trade with Moscow in the goods that were punished by the United States and the European Union. Türkiye’s trade with Russia has multiplied almost three times since Moscow invaded Ukraine, although it has suffered from the loss of Russian tourism. However, Ankara also continued to show Weapons to Kyiv including Bayraktar drones This has proven very important in the early days of the war and is now being manufactured in Ukraine.
Some Turkish commentators speculate that Erdogan may provide him to mediate between Trump and Vladimir Putin. But the former Turkish diplomat Alber Kascon said He did not believe that Putin wanted to “give the glory of” mediation with the United States to any third -party mediator, especially to Türkiye in the aftermath of Syria.
On the other side, Erdogan’s full support for Palestinian enthusiasm and resistance- Accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “genocide” And compare him to Hitler-may bring him to a confrontation with the Trump administration in support of Israel.
However, Erdogan was On the verge of welcome Netanyahu To Türkiye and restore relations before the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. Israel caused the heavy military response against Gaza to a new crisis in relations.
Ankara officially cut trade relations with Israel last year, but Mustafa Aydin, head of the International Relations Council in Turkey, told me that oil from Azerbaijan is still flowing to Israel through Turkish ports and trade with “Palestine” since then, by 2400 % in. Official Turkish statistics indicate that the works continue under a different name. Likewise, the head of the Israeli internal security service, Shin Hamhan, is I reported the Israeli media For secret conversations with his Turkish counterpart, Ibrahim Calin, in November.
Western pragmatic and learners consultants such as Kalin and Foreign Minister Hakan Viana are believed to ascend in Erdogan, while intertwined nationalist and military advisers have been marginalized.
Perhaps the biggest danger to land cards on relations between the United States is Turkey and Israel Entering the direct confrontation in Syria, where they actually became neighbors in the security vacuum after Assad. Idin noted that Israeli politicians and academics were increasingly talking about Turkey as a threat to the Jewish state, while some Turkish military planners fear that Israel, in liquid cooperation with Kurdish fighters, could become a threat to Turkey.
Saddam Israel can destroy Trump’s plans to calm and secede the Middle East. Erdogan seems very pragmatic to allow her to reach it.