East Med tides bring Turkey, UAE closer

The positive momentum between the two countries is linked to the realities emerging in the Eastern Mediterranean and Libya, experts said, highlighting that the relationship is guided by pragmatic gains amid ongoing geopolitical developments

THE RECENT changes in the geopolitical situation and a United States that is less committed to the region could push Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to work together and focus on pragmatic cooperation in the Libyan crisis and the Eastern Mediterranean, experts said.

Converging interests have driven regional power shifts in the Middle East, mainly led by Turkey and the UAE. Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) visited Turkey for the first time since 2012 in November, while President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan paid a visit to the UAE last week.

“Turkey is carrying out normalization processes with actors that emerged in a previous period as an opposition bloc, but it can be seen that this process is much more accelerated and moving in a different direction with the UAE,” Mustafa Yetim, a Gulf studies expert at the Ankara-based think tank Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM), said. “This process can have a positive impact on actors that previously were against Turkey and for which the UAE held a significant position, and the crises in which these actors were involved.”

Vişne Korkmaz of Nişantaşı University, on the other hand, underlined that although the UAE has been reviewing its foreign policy since the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) normalization with Qatar at Al-Ula, she thinks Abu Dhabi has not given up on its “little Sparta” policy.

Although the UAE is described as a small state, Korkmaz pointed out that the country has demonstrated even small states can pursue expansionist policies and that the UAE has built itself up in this regard.

“However the UAE has seen the limits of the policy it has pursued since 2014,” Korkmaz said, pointing to its Yemen policy as well as its rivals, such as Qatar, adopting greater roles in the region, of which Afghanistan is an example. She pointed to the geopolitical conjuncture as a reason for these limits and highlighted that the U.S.’ regional policies and its stance affect the country. The U.S. is currently in no position to pursue a policy of polarizing regional states with high capacities, she said.

THE NEW round of exploratory talks between Turkey and Greece will be held tomorrow in Athens, the Greek Foreign Ministry said Saturday, as the two NATO allies seek to address their differences in the Mediterranean.

Neighbors Turkey and Greece are at odds over a number of issues, including competing claims over jurisdiction in the Eastern Mediterranean, air space, energy, the ethnically split island of Cyprus and the status of the islands in the Aegean Sea.

After a five-year hiatus and months of tensions, the two countries agreed last year to resume talks in an effort to reach common ground and allow for formal negotiations to begin.

Athens and Ankara have held three rounds of talks since then but they still appear far apart.

The two countries initiated exploratory talks to discuss the issues in the Eastern Mediterranean on March 12, 2002, in an effort to find a fair, sustainable and inclusive solution. Talks were regularly held up until 2016, but there had been none since then until 2021 due to political speculation and the Greek side’s reluctance to sit down at the negotiating table. Bilateral discussions had continued in the form of political consultations but did not return to the exploratory framework.

Turkey, which has the longest continental coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, has rejected maritime boundary claims made by Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration, stressing that these excessive claims violate the sovereign rights of both Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

Turkish leaders have repeatedly stressed that Ankara is in favor of resolving outstanding problems in the region through international law, good neighborly relations, dialogue and negotiations. Instead of opting to solve problems with Ankara through dialogue, Athens has, on several occasions, refused to sit at the negotiation table and opted to rally Brussels to take a tougher stance against Turkey.

Despite having said that it has no intention of entering an arms race with its neighbor and NATO ally Turkey, Greece’s burgeoning arms program is designed to counter Turkish interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, against which France is among the few European Union states to have offered public support in past months. Turkey described Greece’s moves of arming itself as “futile.”

Both countries also disagree on the status of the islands in the Aegean. Ankara says that Athens, in violation of international agreements, is militarizing Aegean islands that are under demilitarized status. Commenting on the issue, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said last week that Turkish officials have made frequent warnings and that Turkey will make the highestlevel warning possible if Greece continues its provocations regarding the demilitarized islands in the Aegean Sea.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also last week criticized Greece for militarizing islands close to Turkey’s mainland. “If Greece does not give up on this (armament of the islands), the sovereignty of these islands will be discussed,” he said.

Çavuşoğlu emphasized that these islands were given to Greece with the Lausanne and Paris Peace Agreements on condition that they would be disarmed, and underlined that Greece began violating this term of the treaty in the 1960s.