Beyond the election
the March 31 local elections LEAVING behind, Turkey has officially entered 4 years without elections. Whether there will be a constitutional referendum during this period is unknown. This will be determined by the extent to which the opposition will fall apart or recover after the elections and whether the ruling People’s Alliance will fall apart due to a possible new Kurdish initiative.
The clues about Turkey’s foreign policy in the next four years emerged before March 31. The AK Party government seems to have chosen the West as its orientation. President Erdogan’s invitation to the White House on May 9 can be read as the crowning of this orientation.
RUSSIA AND SYRIA NEEDS ATTENTION
The AK Party government’s orientation towards the West will have some consequences when the world starts to split into two poles, almost precisely in the middle. Syria deserves attention in this respect. The PYD -YPG, the extension of the PKK terrorist organization east of the Euphrates, will obviously be at the top of the agenda in the Erdogan-Biden meeting on May 9, which has not yet been confirmed by Washington but expressed by the pro-government journalists. What is unknown is whether Erdogan will be able to convince Biden to stop supporting the PYD -YPG and form an entire alliance with Turkey, as it was in the early days of the Syrian civil war.
It should not be forgotten that both Russia and Iran are de facto involved in Syria. So, a compromise between Ankara and Washington could result in attacks by pro-Russian, pro-Assad administration, and pro-Iranian militias in Idlib. This would mean hundreds of thousands of new refugees piling up on the Turkish border, a nightmare scenario.
As for relations with Russia, the outcome of Putin’s visit to Turkey, which has become an endless story, will likely determine the course of relations.
Moscow holds many trump cards against Ankara, ranging from deferred natural gas debts to Idlib, from the fate of the nuclear power plant to tourism.
Ankara’s big trump card is that Turkey has not wholly joined the Western sanctions on Russia, which heaves a sigh of relief through Turkey.
UKRAINE, GAZA AND HOPE FOR PEACE
A chink of light for the coming period has begun to emerge concerning the two major chaos in the north and south of Turkey, the war in Ukraine and the brutal Israeli operations in Gaza. It has been leaked to the international press that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant suggested to U.S. officials in Washington to form an international force of Arab countries to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Israeli minister’s proposal would involve an Arab international force transporting aid to Gaza from the humanitarian island to be built by the United States off the coast of Gaza.
The Arab countries insist that they can send a force to maintain the ceasefire instead of sending troops to Gaza just to deliver humanitarian aid. They emphasize that this force can only go to Gaza at the official invitation of the Palestinian authority. The Palestinian invitation is symbolic of the two-state solution.
On the Ukrainian issue, the Kyiv administration interpreted Zelensky’s statement last week as a signal to sit at the bargaining table with Moscow for the first time. The Ukrainian leader said peace talks with Russia can begin before Ukraine reaches the borders of 1991. This means that if Ukraine reclaims the territories occupied by Russia in 2022, it will sit at the peace table without waiting to recapture Crimea. However, Zelensky’s previous position was that there would be no peace until all the territories seized by Russia from Ukraine - including Crimea - were returned to Ukraine.
We should underline that Turkey is not visible in possible ceasefire and peace scenarios in Gaza. However, the way may be paved for Turkey to host the peace table in the new era regarding the Ukrainian war. We will see...