On all three flashpoints, Turkey and Russia are
testing the limits of what was always at best an opportunistic, fragile
partnership aimed at capitalizing on a seemingly diminishing US interest in the
Middle East, evident already under President Barak Obama, and in Donald J.
Trump’s haphazard redefinition of what he sees as America’s national interests.
If that were not already a plate full, Mr. Erdogan’s
relations with his US and European allies are strained over unilateral Turkish
moves in the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey’s acquisition of a Russian S-400
anti-missile system and/or Turkey’s military intervention in Syria as well as
refugees and much more.
At the same time, Mr.Erdogan frets about his alliance with
Qatarin the wake of suggestions that
the Gulf state and Saudi Arabia are searching for a way to end a Saudi-led
2.5-year-old economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar.
The restoration, mediated by the United Nation’s
Universal Postal Union, was the first time that a third-party succeeded in
negotiating any easing of the boycott.
Turkey has warned Israel that it needs Turkish approval
to build together with Greece and Turkey an undersea natural gas pipeline to
Europe.
As he battles on multiple regional fronts, Mr. Erdogan
is walking a finely calibrated tightrope, rather than hitting out blindly at
everyone, in the assumption that neither Russia nor the United States or, for
that matter, Qatar, can afford to lose Turkey. By the same token, neither can
Turkey risk jeopardizing its relationships.
As a result, Mr. Erdogan’s confrontational moves
constitute a high stakes gamble, particularly with Turkey’s military build-up
in northern Syria, an area in which Mr. Erdogan does not enjoy air superiority.
The Turkish leader is betting on Russia blinking first
by reigning in Syrian forces and pressing for a negotiated resolution of the
crisis.
Mr. Erdogan’s provocative visit to Kiev and backing
for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia was about far more than differences
over the Russian-backed Syrian assault in Idlib, the last rebel outpost in the
country.
Concerned that Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014
has put a halt to Turkey’s maritime dominance of the Black Sea and turned it
into a Russian lake, Mr. Erdogan sought in Kyiv to play both sides against the
middle.
Russia’s de facto coastline grew from 475 to 1,200
kilometres or about 25 per cent of the sea’s total shorefront since the
annexation.
Add to that 300 kilometres of coastline belonging to
Abkhazia, a Russian-backed breakaway region of Georgia.
In a bid to counter Russian advances, Mr. Erdogan’s
gamble also constitutes a bid to persuade NATO to back Turkey in the Black Sea,
reversing a decades-old policy of keeping the alliance out of the region.
With 13 Turkish soldiers having died in the last week
in two Syrian attacks on Turkish targets and Turkey claiming to have killed
more than 100 Syrian soldiers in retaliation, Mr. Erdogan’s gambit appears to
have produced initial dividends with the Trump administration backing the
Turkish leader in his high-stakes Syrian bid.
One key joker is the degree to which Mr. Erdogan may
feel that he has no choice but to escalate further than he would like to in
response to far-right nationalists who resonate with part of his voter base and
are pressuring him to go for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s jugular.
Added Devlet Bahceli, head of Mr. Erdogan’s coalition
partner, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP): “Assad is a murderer, a criminal
and the source of hostility.There will be no peace in Turkey until
Assad is brought downfrom his
throne. Turkey must start plans to enter Damascus now, and annihilate the cruel
ones.”
James M. Dorsey
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture.