One shot on the rim and one on the barrel. It would be too easy to explain in this way the balancing act and incredibly contradictory policies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the man who has held the reins of a crucial country in the balance of world politics since 2003. Member of NATO but close to Putin, with whom he shares the tendency to produce testosterone proofs of autocracy, the allergy to any criticism and the presence of an internal opposition, the Sultan, as his critics call him, is a tightrope walker of antonomasia.
The most recent example is the war that broke out in the Middle East following the horrific Hamas massacre in the Jewish state on October 7th. If, on the one hand, Erdogan rails against the Israeli Prime Minister, whom he bluntly describes as a “Nazi”, yesterday he again compared Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler, on the other hand, his country continues to do business with the Jewish state, revealed by exiled Turkish journalist Metin Cihan, who documented a constant influx of Turkish ships into Israel. Despite the bombings in Gaza, Ankara remained Israel's largest global steel supplier, valued at $43.9 million, according to data released by the Turkish Exporters Assembly in November. War material included. As recently as October, during the war, Turkey is said to have sold weapons, various weapons and numerous spare parts to Tel Aviv.
Cihan's findings also suggest government involvement, as the Sefine shipyard, owned by Kolin Holding, one of five companies very close to the Turkish president, is involved in the maintenance of an oil tanker that powers Israeli fighter jets . There are also suspicions that Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, where the 39th Air Base of the US Air Force is located, may have been used by the US to deliver military aid to Israel. In November, an American C-130J Hercules military transport aircraft took off from Incirlik to Akrotiri, a major British air base in Cyprus that serves as a base for transporting weapons to Israel. But the US and Britain refused to disclose the type of goods transported.
In Turkey, where the population is strongly pro-Palestinian, this news has caused great outrage, while no one criticizes the fact that Istanbul is the center of Hamas's financial operations, which has a treasure of around two and a half billion dollars a year. The organization's leaders, such as Khaled Meshal, commute quietly between the megalopolis on the Bosphorus and Qatar, where they have their headquarters. On the other hand, Erdogan has never hidden his admiration for what he defines as an organization “made up of liberation fighters, not terrorists.”
Relations with the EU and NATO
The relationship with NATO, of which Turkey has been a member since 1952, is also ambivalent. “NATO members do not take into account Ankara's security concerns,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in a speech to parliament. The policies implemented by some NATO countries in recent years, the support for the PKK/YPG in Syria and the sanctions imposed on Turkey in the defense sector represent a contradiction.”
Fidan also said that the EU sees Turkey as a “rival rather than a partner” and for this reason the country has looked elsewhere for “the development of greater capacities and alternative strategies,” stressing that this is not a choice but “a necessity for the survival of Turkey” is the state and the Turkish nation”. “I believe that if the Union takes concrete measures to revitalize our country's accession process, it will create new opportunities for both sides,” he said. Turkey applied to join the European Union in 1987 and accession negotiations began in 2005.
The attack on the Kurds
As the world grapples with the war in Ukraine, the Middle East conflict and the possibility of its expansion to other fronts, Turkey is taking advantage of the situation to launch missile and drone attacks on the Kurds beyond its borders and carry out dozens of airstrikes, both in northern Syria and Iraq. Measures also being taken in view of the upcoming local elections on March 31, which could allow the Sultan to regain his beloved Istanbul and the capital. The trigger for the military action was the murder of nine Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq by the PKK on January 12th. The next day, Erdogan promised to “eradicate the existence of Terroristan.”
Meloni's visit
Despite all these contradictions, Turkey continues to play a central role in the crisis between Israel and Gaza, as shown by the recent negotiations on the release of the hostages and the negotiations between Kiev and Moscow (just think of the wheat deal that was released thanks to Ankara) . And that's why Giorgia Meloni's visit, her first as rotating G7 president, is based on details and nuances. So far, the two leaders have only met at international summits, and it is no secret that when the Prime Minister was in opposition, she was always against Turkey's accession to the European Union. But today, as prime minister, Erdogan is a crucial partner not only in the Middle East and Ukraine, but also in the areas of energy, defense and trade. Not to mention immigration: the refugee agreement with the EU dates back to 2016 and with Libya, a country where Ankara plays a strong role. For all these reasons, the meeting between the Turkish President and the Italian Prime Minister, which will take place this afternoon in Istanbul without the pomp reserved for Mario Draghi, must necessarily be a success.