Turkey, NATO and the European Union must confront similar problems: the fight against IS and the refugee emergency.
It was not so long ago that the Turkish President recep Tayyip Erdogan pleaded with russian President Vladimir Putin to allow Turkey into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, comprised of russia, China and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. This was an about-turn from Turkey’s years of engagement with the European Union and NATO.
“Allow us into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and save us from this trouble”, Erdogan said to Putin in 2013. The trouble to which he was referring was Turkey’s longstalled EU accession process.
His statement came at a time when some European heavyweights were blocking progress toward Turkey’s membership. Erdogan’s remarks were also taken by many as an indication that Ankara was turning away from the west and might even be prepared to reconsider its NATO membership.
Erdogan had often expressed anti-western sentiments and it was no secret that Turkey’s relations with the US and Europe had been less than warm in recent years. The west, in turn, had viewed Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) with suspicion. After all, he had rejected certain western democratic values and attempted to shift Turkey’s strategic focus toward the Islamic world.
A few years ago, Turkey was accused of drifting away from the West by focusing on relationships with its Muslim, Middle Eastern neighbours and the BRIC countries (Brazil, India, Russia, and China). The accusations reached fever pitch after a vote in he UN Security council in 2010 in which Ankara rejected new sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear program.
But more recently, Turkish warplanes downed a Russian Su-24 fighter jet, causing unprecedented tension with Moscow. And new security challenges have emerged from the war in Syria, including the threat posed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). These events appear to have repositioned the chess pieces and inspired Turkey to align more closely with the United States and NATO than it has for a long time.
As to the first event, Russian jets began to violate Turkish airspace in October 2015. During one such incursion on November 24, Turkey shot down a Russian plane, something no NATO member had done since 1952.
Ultimately, the incident underscored Turkey’s reliance on NATO. The potential strategic threat that Moscow poses to Ankara’s national security interests has left little choice for the Turkish government but to re-energize ties with its Western allies.
Following the downing of the Russian jet, Ankara stressed that it was not only Turkey’s borders that had been violated by Russia, but NATO’s. Given Turkey’s volatile geography, Ankara appears to have realized that it must cling to its NATO membership, particularly when it finds itself in a dispute with Russia.
After an emergency meeting of all 28 members, requested by Ankara, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said that the military alliance stands by its key ally Turkey. But he also urged both sides to try to calm the crisis. Washington threw its weight behind Ankara’s argument that the Russian warplane violated Turkish airspace, a claim Moscow denies.
The NATO umbrella had already been sheltering Turkey since the Syrian crisis erupted. The Alliance deployed its Patriot missiles along the Turkish/Syrian border in 2013 in order to shoot down any missiles from the conflict that were fired into Turkish territory.
But now, not only has the Turkish government reoriented itself toward its traditional Western allies, the United States and Europe have also recently become more engaged with the Turkish government, seeking support in tackling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and addressing the refugee crisis emanating from the Syrian conflict.
In July 2015, Turkey struck a deal with the US regarding the strategically crucial Incirlik Airbase in southern Turkey. Coalition forces would be allowed to perform airstrikes against ISIL targets in Syria. Thus in August, following a long reluctance to enter into military combat against the jihadist group, Ankara joined the ranks of US-led coalition forces’ aerial campaign on ISIL positions.
In the meantime, European Union leaders were desperate to slow down the influx of Syrian refugees to their shores. Turkey is the major transit country for refugees trying to enter Europe, and the migration crisis has seen nearly one million refugees seeking sanctuary in the European Union in 2015.
Thus a new era of EU-Turkey cooperation began at a summit in November as the parties agreed to a deal aimed at tackling the migration crisis. This also breathed new life into dormant Turkish-European Union relations.
Under the deal, Turkey will monitor its borders more effectively and take care of almost 2.5 million Syrians sheltered on Turkish territory. In return, the EU will provide €3 billion in aid. This opened a new round of negotiations after more than two years of standstill in accession talks. The European Union pledged to accelerate an agreement by which Turkish citizens will be able to travel without visas in Europe’s Schengen zone by October 2016.
Turkey’s EU accession process had stalled in recent years because Ankara fell short on demonstrating democratic values and reforms. But there has also been some foot-dragging by the EU, which is under pressure from certain member states to keep Turkey out.
The European Union has long criticised Turkey its for human rights violations. But now Europe finds itself in troubled times and seems to be willing to overlook Turkish obligations under the rule of law as well as violations of human rights and basic freedoms – from the jailing of journalists to President Erdogan’s growing authoritarianism and suppression of Kurdish nationalist groups.
Many European leaders are refraining from any criticism of the Turkish government. They want Turkey to help solve Europe’s worst migration crisis since the break-up of former Yugoslavia.
And the support that Turkey is receiving from its Western allies has been reassuring to the Turkish government, despite its deteriorating report card on democratic values.
Meanwhile, perhaps unsurprisingly at this point, Turkey decided to crown its strategy of engaging with its Western allies by buying Chinese missiles.
In September 2013, Turkey selected China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp. (CPMIEC) as a preferred bidder for the €3.1 billion deal on long-range missile defense system. The move drew negative reactions from Western countries regarding security and the compatibility of the system with NATO infrastructure.
Members of the Alliance, particularly the United States, objected to Turkey’s decision. They put pressure on Ankara, arguing that the Chinese systems would not be integrated with the alliance’s defence structure. The United States even intimated that it might step back from some joint defence projects.
Under pressure from its NATO allies, Ankara launched parallel talks with two Western arms manufacturers, a partnership of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, and the European Eurosam.
Shortly thereafter, Turkey played host to key Western allies, including US President Barack Obama, at the G20 summit in November in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya. “The deal was cancelled,” an official from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office, who remained anonymous, whispered to reporters.
One cannot ignore the symbolic venue in which the news of abandoning talks with the Chinese emerged, ending a two-year saga over the deal.
Turkey, NATO and the European Union must confront similar problems: the fight against IS and the refugee emergency.
