Analysis by David Narmania, A Socialist In Canada, July 1, 2022 (This column originally appeared in the Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti. Translation and endnotes are by A Socialist In Canada).
The change in Türkiye’s position on the issue of accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO was a matter of time. Few expected it to happen so soon, but there was even less doubt that it was inevitable. Great concern is felt not only in Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora [1] but also in Greece.
Last Saturday, June 25, Turkish intelligence reported the capture of a spy, Mohammed Amar Ampara, who worked for its Greek counterparts. Allegedly under the guise of trading activity, , the businessman learned and transmitted to Athens information about the Turkish army , Syrian refugees in the country and supporters of FETÖ, an organization of followers of Fethullah Gülen , whom Erdogan considers the organizer of the 2016 coup attempt in Türkiye.
This is not the first and it won’t be the last espionage scandal, but the fact that both countries are members of NATO makes the situation especially troubling. NATO is a military organization that personifies a questionable ‘unity’ of the West in the face of a ‘Russian threat’.
The confrontation between Türkiye and Greece has been going on for more than a century. We will not go into the details here, already forgotten by Athens, of how the independence of Greece in 1821 was achieved through the efforts of not only Greek military forces but also those of Russia. The Treaty of Adrianople [Wikipedia] secured a de facto independence of Greece. The treaty settled the war between the Russian and Ottoman empires in 1828-1829. But here we are much more interested in the events of the last several decades.
The time bomb carefully left by Britain in the form of its former colony of Cyprus has blocked the normalization of relations between Athens and Ankara for almost 40 years. Taking advantage of the 1974 military coup in Cyprus supported by Greece, Türkiye took control of the northern part of the island.
This history is today a serious obstacle for Türkiye’s membership in the European Union. The Republic of Cyprus is a member of the EU, but Ankara does not recognize the government in Nicosia. Moreover, in 2014, the European Commission on Human Rights ordered the Turkish side to pay the Cypriots a total of 90 million euros in damages for its military intervention in 1974. [Wikipedia] The Erdogan government and its predecessors have refused.
Erdogan has repeatedly shifted his position on the problem of European Union integration. He has, alternatively, declared that Türkiye is no longer interested or he has called joining the EU a strategic goal. Türkiye has been a ‘candidate’ member of the EU for 23 years.
In recent years, this story has played with new colors. In the late 2010s, geologists discovered oil and gas deposits in the Levantine Basin. Several are located in the economic zone of Cyprus. (see map)
But even without these reserves, the island is of interest from the point of view of energy security. A plan is afoot to build EastMed, the Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline designed to ensure the supply of Middle Eastern fuel to Europe. Greece has actively developed contacts with other countries in the region, in particular Israel and even Egypt. The pipeline would deliver gas from the gas fields in the Levant Basin to Greece via Greece-controlled territory in Cyprus [Wikipedia].
Another issue over which the (formal) NATO allies clash is the dispute over the islands in the Aegean Sea (see map). Ankara is convinced that Greece is violating their demilitarized status. Athens, in turn, says these Turkyish claims are “legally, historically and factually unfounded”. In short, the Greek side wants to expand the territorial waters adjacent to the islands by the 12 miles allowed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This in order to develop the gas fields available there.
Türkiye has not signed the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It signed a memorandum of understanding with Libya in 2019 on the delimitation of maritime zones. This agreement is not recognized by the Greek authorities because they believe that it violates their rights to resource-rich zones in the Mediterranean Sea. Following its signing, the Libyan ambassador to Greece was expelled from Athens.
Greece’s position on this issue has been repeatedly supported by Egypt, Israel and France. France and Egypt have conducted joint naval exercises.[2] At the beginning of 2022, Athens deployed a landing force near the Greece-controlled islands near Türkiye’s Aegean Sea coastline, prompting direct threats of war from Ankara. [3]
To understand why these issues are so important to Türkiye, it is worth remembering the political outlook of the country’s leaders.
If Russia is sometimes reproached for the lack of a national idea, then Erdogan has three of his own. Until recently, the current Turkish leadership has been promoting equally the concepts of European integration, neo-Ottomanism, and Pan-Turkism. The first of those concepts has lost its position due to the circumstances described above.
As part of his neo-Ottoman policy, Erdogan sees the Middle East as his own backyard and imperial legacy. Thus, Ankara is reacting with hostility to Athens’ attempts to establish contacts with Arab countries. But the problem is that since the decision of Portugal granting citizenship to those claiming a history as Sephardic Jews persecuted by the Ottoman Empire [4], the former Ottoman provinces of the Middle East have grown significantly stronger and they are not particularly attracted by the prospect of regional leadership of an ethnically alien Türkiye. Some players, such as Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, Egypt, would like to see themselves as leaders in the Arab world. They have achieved some success in this field, all the while keeping an eye on Russia.
Erdogan is doing the best to implementation the concept of a Great Turan [historic region of ancient central Asia]. In recent years, the integration of Turkic peoples is gaining momentum. Azerbaijan, in particular, is moving closer to Ankara, but other former Soviet republics in central Asia, notably Kazakhstan, are also looking at this project. Given that this idea implies if not a single state then at least a community ‘from the Mediterranean to the Laptev Sea’ [in the Arctic Ocean], Russia is closely watching Türkiye’s actions in this direction.
The implementation of any of these ideas will require enormous costs from the Turkish authorities and the construction of a powerful economy. And here the boat of the Sultan’s [Erdogan’s] ambitions crashes against the harsh reality of a record 70 percent inflation, threatening not only the implementation of large-scale strategies but also Erdogan’s prospects in the election to take place in less than one year.
In light of the current turbulence and Europe’s attempts to find an alternative to Russian gas and oil, access to energy resources promises huge benefits for Ankara that could help solve existing domestic problems. That is why Türkiye so zealously defends its status as the main fuel hub in the south of the European Union while also trying to become an independent supplier. In pursuit of this, it behaves like a weapon detached from the NATO ship, firing at 270 degrees in disputes with Greece and on the issue of Finland and Sweden joining the alliance.
The United States is forced to watch as such actions threaten the unity of the West. As the saying goes, this is no time to be hitting oneself on the head.
The U.S. and its allies understand how Ankara is using Stockholm and Helsinki as a bargaining chip in this deal. There are material benefits in rejecting the ephemeral ideals of ‘European unity’. Athens understands that its interests may become the next bargaining chip in exchange for Erdogan’s loyalty.
Endnotes by A Socialist In Canada:
1. ‘Swedish and Finnish NATO deal with Turkey triggers fears over Kurdish deportations’, Politico.eu, June 29, 2022 and: ‘Turkey agrees to support Sweden, Finland NATO bids’, by Rudaw news agency, June 28, 2022
2. ‘IDF wraps up naval drill with Greece, France, Cyprus and U.S.’, Times of Israel, Mar 24, 2022 and ‘Egypt, France kick off military air, naval drills in Mediterranean’, Al Araby, Feb 21, 2022
3. ‘Stop militarising Aegean islands’, Türkiye’s Erdogan tells Greece, Al Jazeera, June 9, 2022
4. In 2015, Portugal amended its citizenship law to permit Sephardic Jews who were persecuted and expelled centuries earlier to apply for citizenship, following an earlier such decision by Spain. Many of those are residents of Türkiye or descendants from the Ottoman Empire. More than 137,000 such Jews have applied for Portuguese nationality and over 57,000 have received it. (Jerusalem Post, April 25, 2022) More than 132,000 descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain in the late 15th century have applied for Spanish citizenship. (The Guardian, Oct 2, 2019)
