Toward the end of September or early October, the process of appointing the senior Turkish diplomatic staff will end, and a new Turkish ambassador will land in Israel.
As far as is known, three are vying for the position, with the guiding principle being a veteran foreign ministry professional. “It will be an ambassador who knows the area well, and the complex relationship between Turkey and Israel. The object is to pour true content in the renewed normalization, which was undermined some 12 years ago,” a senior Turkish diplomat told Haaretz.
- Back in 2020 the name of a prospective ambassador was leaked – Ufuk Ulutas who was head of the SETA think tank and even studied at the Hebrew University. He was supposed to arrive in Israel in March of 2021, but his appointment was postponed due to Israel’s opposition following anti-Israeli statements, the then-impending elections in Israel, and mostly the reluctance of Yair Lapid, then foreign minister, to accelerate the normalization.
Since then Lapid has changed his mind. His meeting in June with his counterpart, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, at a conference in Antalya, the tight cooperation between the Israeli and Turkish intelligence services in foiling attempted Iranian terror attacks in Istanbul, and an overlap of interests in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict in which both countries aided Azerbaijan in its war against Armenia in late 2020 have also contributed to a re-examination of Israel’s Turkish policy.
Resumption of relations with Israel does not mean full reconciliation for Turkey with countries in the region. Egypt is still proceeding slowly, not rushing to shake President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hand. However, high-level diplomatic and professional delegations have already laid the groundwork for renewal of relations, with Turkey becoming the largest importer of Egyptian gas in recent months.
Turkey hopes that renewed ties with Israel will lead soon to full relations with Egypt as well, realizing Erdogan’s ambition to make Turkey an international hub of transporting gas from the Middle East to Europe.
After Washington changed its mind regarding the gas pipeline connecting Israel, Cyprus, and Greece to Europe, the realistic option is to build a pipeline from Israel to Turkey, and to connect the gas from Egypt through it as well. That could become the most important gas depot, able to pose an alternative to Russian gas.
To normalize relations with Israel, Turkey paid a painful diplomatic price when it decided to expel senior Hamas personnel from its territory and made it clear to the organization’s leadership that it will no longer allow political activity on its soil, let along military activity. Turkey offered its services in rebuilding the Gaza Strip and it may join a group of donor countries Israel is trying to recruit to fund economic projects in Gaza. According to an Israeli diplomatic source, “Turkey may also convince Qatar to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, with the justification being the need to help the Palestinians in the Strip and not [leave it] just to them.”
Turkey has readopted the “zero problems with the neighbors” policy, first introduced in 2002, when the Justice and Development Party won a resounding election victory. The architect of the doctrine, Prof. Ahmet Davutoglu, explained at the time to Haaretz that unlike the past, when Turkey was mired in rivalries and conflicts with neighboring countries such as Iran, Syria and other Arab countries, it intends to position itself as a bridge and a mediator between East and West, and as such is obligated to first improve its relations with its neighbors. Davutoglu would later be appointed prime minister of Turkey, due to deep disagreement between himself and Erdogan regarding what turned out to be the president’s autocratic rule. Of his doctrine, not much is left. In 2010 relations between Israel and Turkey were almost completely severed following the Gaza flotilla affair.
- A year later Turkey cut off ties with Syria due to the mass slaughter of Syrian citizens by Assad since 2011. A year and a half later ties between Ankara and Cairo were cut off after President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi deposed and arrested the elected president, Mohammed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, and came under harsh verbal attacks from Erdogan, who refused to recognize Sissi’s legitimacy. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain all saw Turkey as a “dangerous threat,” worse than that of Iran. Of all the Gulf countries, only Qatar continued to maintain its ties with Turkey.
Turkey-EU ties strained
- At the same time, relations between Turkey and the European Union deteriorated, first against the backdrop of the systematic violation of human rights, suppression of free expression, the violent struggle against the Kurdish minority in Turkey, and then because of the gas drilling Turkey carried out in the Mediterranean, in an area claimed by Cyprus and Greece.
The refugee agreement signed between Turkey and the European Union in 2016, under which Turkey would block the stream of Syrian refugees heading to Europe, in exchange for some six billion euros from the EU and a visa exemption for Turkish citizens, has not dissolved the tensions between the parties.
- The visa exemption has not been granted, and Turkey continues to blame European countries for “encouraging Kurdish terrorism,” and at times threatens to break the refugee pact as a means of pressure.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s loathing toward Erdogan is well known, and to this day Ankara grudges Biden the long months he waited before speaking with Erdogan.
Even today, relations between the two presidents are far from a love story, with Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft systems, despite Western opposition, continuing to sour relations between the sides. It seemed that all that is left of the “zero problems with the neighbors” doctrine is the paper it was written on.
It was this isolation that Erdogan decided to break when Turkey started to slide into the deep economic crisis in 2018. He was forced to wait until January 2021, when the Gulf countries, headed by the Saudis, decided to remove the siege and sanctions imposed on Qatar for three years earlier, before he could thread his way back into the Gulf region.
The tight cooperation between Turkey and Qatar, both in their bilateral relations and in the war in Libya, placed Turkey on the side of “the enemies of the Gulf countries.”
First to decide to renew its relations with Turkey was the UAE, despite Erdogan viciously attacking its normalization agreement with Israel, even threatening to recall the Turkish ambassador. Later on he began sending out feelers to Israel and Egypt, and his major success was in renewing relations with Saudi Arabia, in exchange for closing the investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and moving the rest of the trial to Saudi Arabia.
Erdogan received commitments for billions of dollars in investments from both countries, which will greatly help improve the economic situation.
In a year Turkey will hold presidential elections, and Erdogan must show economic achievements by then to allay the rage in Turkey over the dramatic rise in prices, the steep nosedive in the value of the Turkish lira and inflation of over 70 percent.
A supportive diplomatic-economic relationship with regional countries is the card Erdogan will play to ensure he can continue his uninterrupted 20-year reign.
Source: Zvi Bar’el – HAARETZ