ANKARA (Reuters) – When Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan last met Joe Biden in official business in August 2016, Erdogan had just sent tanks to Syria.
Sitting next to Erdogan in a golden leaf and cream chair in the presidential palace in Ankara, then Vice President Biden said, “We support the operation.”
US air support helped with this incursion, when Washington showed a show of solidarity after an attempted coup against Erdogan the previous month; Biden visited parliament to see the damage caused by bombs when rogue soldiers in tanks and fighters tried to seize power.
Almost five years later, Biden is president and Erdogan’s interventions abroad have multiplied, to the point that Turkey participates in many of the struggles that Biden must face in the most volatile region in the world. Interviews with a dozen insiders and officials from both countries show how the weeks surrounding the coup and Biden’s visit set the stage for a new era of Turkish power projection, starting with that foray into Syria.
Turkey paved the way for prominence in the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus. At home, Erdogan launched a purge that would eventually remove 20,000 soldiers and began to focus authority around the presidency.
Building heavily on a close personal relationship with Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump – advisers said Erdogan used to call Trump on the golf course – Erdogan developed a vision of what a Western diplomat called “a club of strong leaders who separate the world ”.
This was a view that Erdogan shared with Trump, but not with Biden, who publicly described Erdogan as an autocrat and promised American diplomats in February that the United States would approach a “new moment of advancing authoritarianism” in the world through outdated diplomacy. and building alliances.
It will not be easy. Since 2016, the Turkish leader has undertaken three more inroads into Syria, one targeting the United States’ allied Kurdish fighters directly. He changed the course of Libya’s civil war, bought arms from Russia, defied the maritime claims of European neighbors in the Eastern Mediterranean and supported Azerbaijan’s military victory over Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Over the weekend, Erdogan abruptly pulled Turkey out of a convention that protected women from violence, a move that his US and EU allies said was another setback for human rights in Turkey. He also plunged the markets into turmoil by firing a central bank governor admired by Western investors.
Still, Turkey hopes that a European Union summit this week could be a step towards improving tense ties, the government said. Erdogan also said he would seek good relations with Biden, but insists that Turkey needs to protect its interests.
“We have no eyes on the land, seas or sovereignty of any country,” Erdogan told officials at the end of a major naval exercise in the Mediterranean this month. “We are just trying to protect our homeland and our rights.”
Asked whether US support for Turkey’s first foray into Syria may have encouraged Ankara in its military operations, the State Department declined to comment.
“The United States is trying to fix the very status quo that Erdogan rejects,” said Max Hoffman, associate director of the Center for American Progress, a Washington study center that helped shape Biden’s Democratic Party policies. “There is an obvious tension.”
TIME A ‘
When Biden visited Turkey in 2016, the country was in shock at the failed coup. But Erdogan, who had long been irritated by powerful military men who resisted his calls for intervention in Syria, saw an opportunity in the turmoil. He described the coup attempt as a “gift from God” and an opportunity to purify the army.
Two Turkish officials close to him say that two incidents four years apart show how power was transferred to the president. When a Turkish reconnaissance plane was shot down by Syria in 2012, Erdogan wanted to send five Turkish jets to attack Syrian targets in retaliation, but was rejected by officials who said it would pose the risk of an escalation for which the army was not ready.
Turkey’s defense ministry declined to comment on the matter.
A month after the 2016 coup attempt, when an Islamic State suicide bomber struck a wedding in southern Turkey, Erdogan was determined to attack the Islamic group at its refuge in Syria. This time, and with the help of the USA, he succeeded.
Ahmet Davutoglu and Ali Babacan, who served as important ministers in Erdogan’s governments before breaking up to form rival political parties, told Reuters that as of 2016 the president left aside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the staff. military.
Babacan, a former minister of economy and foreign affairs, said Turkey had previously avoided direct military interventions. Davutoglu, who served as prime minister and advocated a “zero problems with neighbors” policy, said that before 2016, “opinions would be asked … We would then arrive at a final vision and pass it on to the prime minister or president ”.
These former allies said the move to a restricted circle of advisers has accelerated Turkey’s more aggressive stance.
Officially, military and security decisions are made by the cabinet and the National Security Council, but three political and security officials, as well as diplomats and analysts, say Erdogan depends primarily on Hulusi Akar – a military commander hostage to the 2016 coup. who is now defense minister, as well as intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and presidential spokesman and adviser Ibrahim Kalin.
“These people, who almost always come together for operations abroad, work like Erdogan’s Team A,” said a security officer who works with the presidency.
Officials from the presidency, intelligence organization and defense ministry declined to comment on the roles played by Akar, Fidan and Kalin, or statements by former ministers.
FRENEMIES
A Turkish aide summed up Erdogan’s mindset as “Turkey first”. Ankara, the aide said, was tired of scenarios in which the United States or Russia “dictates the rules, while Turkey pays the price”.
The 2016 operation in Syria, for example, stopped the gains of Kurdish fighters that the United States chose as partners against Islamic State. Erdogan went on to play dual roles with Moscow and Washington.
In Libya, Turkey sent armed drones, military trainers and Syrian mercenaries to repel an attack on Tripoli that had been supported by Russia. His move against Moscow came months after Turkey bought $ 2.5 billion in Russian missile defense systems – a deal that in turn angered Washington and led to American sanctions on the Turkish defense industry.
“It was very evident that they were trying to exert more influence in the Middle East region and also in some Gulf states,” Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of US troops in the Middle East at the time, told Reuters.
Erdogan also challenged the European Union, sending ships to explore natural gas in waters long claimed by Greece and Cyprus. When the EU threatened sanctions, Erdogan ignored the threats.
In addition to the immediate neighborhood, Erdogan set up military bases in Qatar and Somalia, projecting Turkish forces into the Gulf and Horn of Africa.
“As these operations were carried out, Turkey realized its own capabilities and realized that its competitors were unable – or did not want – to react,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Turkish director of the German Marshall Fund in the United States.
“Turkey basically had freedom … and realized that it could change reality on the ground.”
CHALLENGING PLAYER
Erdogan also found homemade military solutions. Her son-in-law Selcuk Bayraktar is a co-owner of Baykar, a pioneer in domestic drone production in Turkey. Its aircraft have helped the army to attack distant opponents without risking the lives of the military in combat and are part of Ankara’s declared effort to develop an independent arms industry.
Turkey claims to have used drones against Kurdish militants in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq, where sending ground troops is dangerous. In Libya, its drones have destroyed Russian air defense systems. In a campaign against Russian-backed Syrian government forces in Idlib, in northern Syria, in early 2020, the drones helped attack three Syrian fighters, eight helicopters and 151 tanks, according to the Turkish military.
The scale and impact of the operations drew attention.
“Even if only half of those statements are true, the implications are game-changing,” Britain’s Defense Minister Ben Wallace said in a speech about the future of conflicting airpower. Turkey has deployed electronic warfare, lightly armed drones and smart ammunition “to stop tanks, armored cars and air defense systems in its tracks”.
In addition to the battlefield, Erdogan’s highly personalized diplomacy changed the course of events. He spoke regularly with Trump, on phone calls that U.S. advisers said they often deviated from the scripts that American government officials prepared.
Erdogan intensified that connection in March 2018 after Trump sacked his secretary of state and national security adviser, who had been working to neutralize a dispute with Turkey over Syria. The resignation prompted Erdogan to behave as if contact with anyone other than the president was a waste of time, said Fiona Hill, who served as senior director for European and Russian Affairs at Trump’s National Security Council.
In a call in December 2018, Trump was instructed to warn Erdogan against an operation in northeastern Syria, where the Turkish leader planned to target U.S. Kurdish allies, according to American officials. Instead, encouraged by Erdogan, Trump promised to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and hand over responsibility for fighting Islamic State in Syria to Turkey.
That decision, then partially reversed, surprised even Erdogan officials, they told Reuters.
BIDEN SILENT
Since then, Erdogan has resumed negotiations with Greece over his maritime dispute, has eased a war of words with the French president and emphasized the prospects of repairing ties with Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
But his forays made him enemies, and as his inner circle narrowed at home, polls showed a drop in support for his party, which had an alliance with a smaller nationalist party to gain a majority in the 2018 parliamentary vote.
A compilation of 15 recent polls in February showed his 46% support, suggesting that he faces a battle to extend his power to a third decade in the elections scheduled for 2023.
More immediately, he faces a new government in the White House.
Last week, Erdogan scolded Biden for saying in an interview on US television that he thought Putin was a murderer, describing the comments as unacceptable and inappropriate for a US president.
Two months after taking office, Biden has not yet called the Turkish president.
Orhan Coskun reported from Ankara, Humeya Pamuk from Washington, DC; Written by Dominic Evans; Edited by Sara Ledwith