German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Turkey for a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Oct. 18 is an indication of the country’s growing importance and influence in the region.
With the European Union grappling with a refugee crisis caused by civil war in Syria, Turkey is a good friend to have right now. Perhaps that’s why Merkel came with a pledge to push for Turkey’s accession to the union, even though she won the chancellorship in 2005 on a promise never to let Turkey join.
And there’s no denying the country, with its population of 79 million and a gross domestic product of $800 billion, is an important regional player. Acting as a bridge between Europe and the Middle East, it is a natural trade route – the same position in which Ukraine finds itself.
Others are courting the regional linchpin as well.
Merkel’s visit came after Erdogan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin a month ago in Moscow. The two leaders agreed on a $100 billion trade partnership by 2023, which includes a $15 billion gas pipeline and a $22 billion nuclear power plant in southern Turkey, which is already under construction. Russia alone provides nearly one-fifth of Turkey’s energy, and almost 60 percent of its natural gas.
However, Erdogan has stressed that Turkey’s links to the EU take precedence over those it has with Russia, especially after the Kremlin deployed its military in Syria and violated Turkey’s airspace with its warplanes.
“We are Russia’s number one natural gas consumer,” Erdogan said at a press briefing on Oct. 8, cited by Reuters. “Losing Turkey would be a serious loss for Russia. If necessary, Turkey can get its natural gas from many different places.”
Ariel Cohen of the Institute for Analysis of Global Security says that Turkey will most likely remain committed to the EU. “Turkey is a pillar of NATO’s southern flank. It played a crucial role in the Cold War and before that to keep the Soviet Union in check,” Cohen, also a member of the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank, told the Kyiv Post on Oct. 22.
After the Cold War there were some in Turkey who wanted to reorient their country to the East – Russia, China and the Muslim countries.
“The conflict in Syria, bad relations with Egypt, the war with the Kurds, and now deteriorating relations with Russia suggest that all these dreams were pipe dreams, and Turkey is definitely with the West,” Cohen says.
Ukraine is in a similar position to Turkey: the country has drastically reduced its dependence on Russian gas supplies since the Kremlin annexed Crimea in March 2014 and invaded Donbas a month later. Like Turkey, Ukraine has now firmly set itself on a more European and pro-Western development course.
Another similarity is that both countries are “post-imperial” states: Whereas Turkey was the core of the Ottoman Empire, Ukraine was the second most important region of the old Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
“Both countries, in a way, are seeking their place in the world,” Cohen says. “Eighty years of Turkey’s independence indicate great success but also a lot of challenges, while 20 years of Ukrainian independence indicate a lot of challenges and more modest successes.”
While Turkey is undoubtedly important to the EU, the 28-nation bloc has always given a lukewarm response to Ankara’s membership advances. While Turkey signed an association agreement with the EU in 1963, it is still no closer to becoming an EU member.
In contrast, Ukraine signed its association agreement with the EU in 2014, and if there is commitment from both sides, Ukraine can become an EU member in 10 years, Cohen says.
The main reason for this difference is that, unlike Ukraine, Turkey borders with Middle Eastern countries, such as Syria, Iran and Iraq, which have always been problematic for the West. Ukraine, on the other hand, with its smaller population and predominantly Christian background, has a better chance of joining the EU, Cohen says.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meet on Oct. 18 in Istanbul. (AFP)
Meanwhile, the EU is trying to figure out what to do with border defense and protection to bring the refugee problem under control, and “Turkey is playing an important role in that,” Cohen says.
Until recently, Turkey had been preventing Syrian refugees from entering the EU. But then in September Erdogan opened the border, allowing 60,000 Syrian refugees to enter Turkey, which in turn “put a lot of pressure on the EU,” Cohen says. “The EU is now offering Turkey free-visa travel for its citizens into the EU in exchange for keeping the migration under control.”
So far Turkey says it has spent $7.6 billion on providing for the needs of Syrian refugees, which Erdogan says he considers a “moral duty.”
Some Turkish businesspeople in Ukraine also find similarities between Ukraine and Turkey in that they both have to deal with internal armed conflicts.
Adnan Anacali, general manager of Creditwest Ukraine, says that the presence of terrorists in Ukraine’s east is similar to Turkey’s more than 35 year-old-battle against Kurdish insurgents in the country’s southeastern region.
“We’ve understood that the conflict in the east, in the Donbas area, has become a similar situation to that in the eastern part of Turkey,” Anacali says.
Ukrainians can benefit from Turkey’s long experience in dealing with internal conflict, while at the same time making sure the economy grows, he added. But he said dealing with such a conflict, even if it is a low-level one, is going to be expensive.
“We spent $350 billion just to manage these problems over the last 30 years,” Anacali says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Ilya Timtchenko can be reached at [email protected]
