New realities in the Middle East threaten Erdogan with the loss of major trump cards in the midst of the election campaign
China factor
While the United States is actively discussing the strategy after the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, especially after the official invitation to the Iranian president to visit Riyadh, while we have all the attention paid to the decision of the ICC in The Hague and the visit of the Chinese leader to Turkey with the announcement of K. Kilychdaroglu as the sole leader from The opposition was in full swing in the election campaign.
From the point of view of Russia's interests, the elections to be held in Turkey on May 14 are extremely important. At the same time, the attitude that we have developed in terms of presenting information in this area can rather be called superficial. It is possible that due to a certain expert consensus, according to which economic problems, combined with the consequences of the earthquake in the year of key elections, will a priori prevent Ankara from pursuing an active foreign policy.
Things have once again come to the point that Mr. S. Bagdasarov, on our air, called for returning Istanbul “to his native harbor”, hoisting a cross over Sofia, which earned him incredible popularity in all the major media in Turkey. God be with him, but even more balanced observers say that Turkey's foreign policy pressure will weaken. In the author's opinion, analyzing this direction (and it is actually one of the key ones for us), it is necessary to talk not about "strength" or "weakness", but about the very vector of our complex neighbor's foreign policy.
And one of the key factors for this is just the emergence of China in an active position and the normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. And it is not in vain that R. Erdogan's office was somewhat distracted from the Ukrainian direction. There is still more than one brainstorming to develop their attitude towards this new configuration of forces, especially since it is foreign policy that is an integral part of the electoral position of the forces represented by R. Erdogan and which stand behind the Turkish president.
The balance of power
As before the last major elections, Turkey's political field is consolidating into two associations or alliances. The first alliance is Cumhur ("Cumhur") or "People's Alliance", where the forces of the Justice and Development Party of R. Erdogan, the National Action Party and the Great Unity Party merge - centrists under the banner of "political Islam", conservatives, nationalists, including quite radical versions. This is not just a "right", but a religiously oriented right. However, the Turkish political system is much more complex than just the opposition of "left" and "right", which, in fact, we will see when we consider the oppositional alliance of forces.
The second alliance Millet ("Millet") or "National Alliance" represents the so-called. "Cabinet of six chairs", where from the "classical Kemalists" one can single out the People's Republican Party, the strongest in this tactical association, which is just headed by the leader from the united opposition K. Kylychdaroglu, as well as the Democratic Party, etc. "Good Party", formed in 2017.
The rest of the forces come from the political alliances of the center and the right wing, which for various reasons did not agree with the policy of R. Erdogan. This is the "Party of Happiness", which exists on the basis of the ideological predecessor of R. Erdogan himself - N. Erbakan (Millî Görüş), and these are Eurosceptics and national conservatives, as well as the "Party of the Future" (former Prime Minister of Turkey A Davutoglu, who, by the way, was once blamed for the attack on a Russian plane) and Democracy and Progress (DEVA), headed by former Deputy Prime Minister A. Babajan. The latter are, again, “moderate right-wingers”, and A. Davutoglu can not be called a Kemalist at all.
Such an alliance at first glance seems to be something unnatural, but here it is necessary to look at it as a whole, since the main goal of such associations for a long time has been to counter the “Erdogan factor” itself. And this is expressed in the fact that every year the positions of the Turkish leader are increasingly shifting to the right. If we consider these opposition alliances in dynamics, we will see how R. Erdogan is gradually being squeezed out of the conservative center to the right side of the road “into the mountains” (even in the literal sense). Among the Turkish opposition, it is believed that if R. Erdogan receives a real rating of 30–32%, he will not overcome the threshold of 42% when voting, and in the Turkish electoral system, the one who receives more than 50% of all votes wins. This is the goal the opposition is striving for, "eating off" R. Erdogan's conservative centrists.
The "alliance of six" adjoins the Kurdish People's Democratic Party, which traditionally gains the votes of ethnic Kurds in the southern and southeastern provinces. While not playing a significant role in normal times, the positions of the NDP increase many times over at times when the struggle is for additional percentages of votes.
Now the mood in the Turkish oppositional segment of the Internet is quite optimistic, even bravura and, following exactly the logic described above, there are actively untwisted public opinion polls, where the rating of the Turkish leader does not exceed those same 30%, and the rating of K. Kılıçdaroglu is consistently above 60%. If until March the opposition almost insisted that the elections should be postponed to a later date, today, on the contrary, there are statements from there that the postponement of the election date will mean almost a coup d'état.
In terms of foreign policy, which for a long time was one of the strongest trump cards in R. Erdogan's deck, the opposition occupied and occupies a very comfortable position "everything will be as it was, and even better." Thus, with regard to Russia, K. Kılıçdaroğlu says: “I believe that the existing positions will be further strengthened”, with regard to sanctions, he suggests focusing on the consolidated position of the UN Security Council; to all sides.
At the same time, the leader of the Turkish opposition sent a separate letter to Damascus expressing condolences in the common tragedy. In general, his interview on foreign policy for Medya Günlüğü looks very, very balanced, if you do not take into account the fact that other representatives of the Republican People's Party are widely in favor of the maximum activation of Turkey's work within the NATO partnership. In our country, it is clear that they are very sharply criticizing R. Erdogan's recent decision to send a positive decision on Finland's membership in NATO to the parliament for approval, but they take little into account the context of this step.
The Turkish president's assets include quite effective work to eliminate the consequences of the earthquake. The opposition frankly did not expect that R. Erdogan's cabinet would act quite clearly and harmoniously in this direction, even extinguishing the wave of indignation caused by violations in the construction industry.
Traditionally, the opposition disperses rumors that the Turkish leader intends to fully use the factor of naturalized Syrian refugees in the elections, whom R. Erdogan has been trying to resettle back to Syria to the territories controlled by his formations for years. As a result, it is R. Erdogan's cabinet that does not intensify work on the admission of new citizens, of whom, in reality, no more than 200 thousand out of almost 4 million migrants were naturalized over the entire period.
Without taking into account the internal context of Turkish politics, it is difficult to adequately analyze the steps of the current Ankara, which we traditionally take in the media in a deliberately anti-Russian vein. But the problem is precisely that R. Erdogan's opposition year after year bites off the conservative center - the same “squeezing as far as possible to the right” described above. We just had a flurry of criticism on the topic of “parallel import” restrictions, but here we should rather be surprised not by the fact that Ankara introduced the restrictions, but by the fact that it introduced them in that form only today.
According to the WTO norms and the TRIPS agreement, right holders can easily impose restrictions on their products, and Turkey is generally a member of the common customs area of the EU. It has long been necessary to understand that simple re-export is a very unreliable road, and fictitious transit is doubly unreliable, and it was necessary to form in advance more complex, three-, even four-part schemes of work, opening joint ventures in Turkey, and even better - in Iran. Well, the current cabinet of R. Erdogan with such opposition cannot simply take and defiantly not comply with the norms of agreements in the EU.
This is only half the trouble
All this would be half the trouble if R. Erdogan could continue to rely on his past foreign policy achievements and backlogs in the struggle for the seat, and the opposition would be forced to follow in the laid direction. But the configuration that began to take shape in the Middle East behind the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia plays against R. Erdogan and, oddly enough, plays into the hands of his political opponents. The Eastern strategy of R. Erdogan, like a good stool, had several strong legs: the fight against terrorism in the face of the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Syria and Iraq, the protection of the interests of the Turkomans in Syria and Iraq, as well as assistance to the opposition to Damascus, assistance to Azerbaijan in the Karabakh issue and protecting the interests of Palestinians in Israel and Jerusalem's shrines.
The strengthening of Turkey's positions in each of these areas, one way or another, was based on systemic contradictions between the Gulf countries and Iran. Turkey acted in each case as a third force, and often a military force. Now, no matter what knot you take, you need to make adjustments everywhere.
What will happen if Saudi Arabia takes a course towards reconciliation with Damascus, as the UAE and Oman did, especially after a personal meeting between the President of Iran and Prince M. bin Salman? Activate in Iraq? But this is how Iraq deserved gratitude from both sides for their help in the negotiation process.
Turkey can stand up for the rights of the Palestinians, but the real military force that directly affects the process is the pro-Iranian forces, and the movement alone will only result in words. Block with the Americans? But what to do with US support for paramilitaries affiliated with the same Workers' Party - Ankara's main and permanent opponent? It is not for nothing that Kazakhstan de facto left the framework of the so-called. The "Astana format" of settlement in Syria has simply outlived its usefulness.
Turkey may increase pressure in terms of assistance to Azerbaijan. But, again, this is a tension with Iran, and here it is not necessary to wait for approval from the Arab countries. All these questions are spinning one after the other and at the same time so out of time for the Turkish leader.
But his political opponents are spared such problems, because, on the one hand, they support a certain general line of R. Erdogan's past foreign policy achievements, on the other hand, they are generally spared from the need for reflection, since, signing approval of the achievements of the past with one hand, they can write with the other new configuration from scratch. At least no one is stopping them from saying so.
R. Erdogan has not found himself in such an uncomfortable position, probably, since the ever-memorable 2016, and in this respect it is even somewhat surprising that the so-called. "grain deal", where Turkey is only the third beneficiary after the EU and China, and the extension itself is probably a concession to Ankara during the election campaign - unpleasant as a fact, but not so critical against the general background of the past year, as well as against the backdrop of already exported 25 million tons, when it comes to the export of residues. The fact that the deal would be extended was, in general, obviously, the issue was more in the information presentation and specific deadlines, and traditionally everything is different with us.
Can R. Erdogan in such difficult pre-election conditions simply “reduce foreign policy activity”, which is one of his pillars? After all, even the question of mediation in the Ukrainian issue today is firmly tied to the position of Beijing. A victory on any of the international platforms for R. Erdogan's cabinet is not a whim, but a matter of the presidency. Therefore, it is not that we should not expect a decrease in activity, but, on the contrary, its activation in one of the specific areas.
For Russia
For Russia during this period, despite the whole range of acute systemic problems, it is still important to decide which Turkey is preferable to us - an understandable Erdogan or a patchwork quilt of the current Turkish opposition, which is sewn together with a thread of opposition to the Turkish leader. The answer to this question is complicated by the fact that now two large nuclei - Chinese and American - are gradually drawing the nearest centrifugal economies into their orbit. Iran, Russia, Central Asia are moving into the Chinese cluster, but what about the Turkish economy?
And the Turkish economy is one way or another part of the European system. If the Arab countries still have a set of different options, then Turkey's vector is much more defined. And although, paradoxically, it is the Turkish diaspora in Europe that votes for R. Erdogan, it is the arrival of his opponents that will firmly return Turkey economically and politically to the “European rails”. At the beginning of this path, we will most likely get something like a “Greater Hungary” in terms of the sanctions line, but it’s hard to say further, given that half of the Turkish opposition in the past has been supporters of the toughest strategy regarding our policy in Syria. If the Turkish leader remains for a new term, our southern neighbor will literally be torn apart between these two monstrous economic clusters, while we will have to spend resources on foreign policy exacerbations with enviable constancy.
The arrival of the opposition will give a tactical bonus, but it strategically threatens us with a sanctions wall from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea, the continuation of R. Erdogan's line is costly, both in terms of tactical costs and resource support for this regime, and it is also associated with the perception of such a position as a policy of "eternal concessions Moscow". How much it costs in exchange for Ankara's weak involvement in NATO's anti-Russian policy and certain "holes" in the policy of European and American sanctions should be considered with a minimum of emotions, including directly in money. Moreover, a number of large energy projects have already been implemented or are under implementation. It is desirable to do this as soon as possible, because in the very near future, even our television talk shows will fluctuate the percentage of voting in May, when R. Erdogan and the opposition will literally breathe into each other's necks.
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