Sinan Ciddi
Under Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) rule, Turkey’s standing in the world has unquestionably diminished. If the purpose of foreign policy is the pursuit and realization of national interests in the international arena, there is a strong case to be made that the AKP era has delivered dismal results. From relations with its Western allies and regional neighbors to membership in alliance security networks, Turkish policy under authoritarian Islamism has been a dismal failure. Ankara today is a marginalized, distrusted, and less impactful power today than it was before Erdogan took power in early 2003. If one doubts this, consider this question: How many countries within NATO, which Turkey has been a member of since 1952, consider Turkey a trusted ally?
Instead of advocating for a return to the “golden age” of the Ottoman Empire, which the Islamist “National Outlook” movement had promised since the 1960s, influential political actors around Erdogan, like Abdullah Gul and Bulent Arinc, now stood to embrace Turkey’s membership of NATO, the country’s accession bid to join the European Union (EU), and secure Turkey’s future as a progressive secular democracy that aligned to the founding principles of Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founding father.
And the truth is, many did warn of what Erdogan really represented. When he became Prime Minister in his late forties, Erdogan had spent most of his political career fully immersed in the doctrine and policy pursuits of Turkey’s Islamist movement. Perceiving his comment that he had “changed” as anything more than the opportunist aspirations of an incarcerated politician, seeking power was a naïve expectation. Those who pointed this out during Erdogan’s earlier days in power were denounced as fans of Kemalist authoritarianism and were accused of wishing to see the continuity of Turkey’s governance by a loose coalition of military and secular civilian elites.
In office, it took Erdogan little time to find his feet in the realm of foreign policy and start taking a wrecking ball to decades of prior governments’ work to make Turkey a stalwart member of the Western security alliance.
Like the pot slow-boiling the frog, Erdogan’s strategy to distance Turkey from its Western anchor was gradual. It began as a two-pronged effort: first, he abandoned Turkey’s EU accession process (after 2007) and then dismantled Turkey’s close ties to Israel. Erdogan used the excuse of a stalled EU accession process, which admittedly was botched by European powers, to begin with, to drive a discourse that Europe was Islamophobic and did not want to see Turkey as a member in their midst. While this may have been true, Erdogan made little effort to engage in the accession process. By 2017, Erdogan was actively demonizing the EU as a hater of Muslims, often referring to European powers such as the Netherlands as “Nazi remnants.”
Inflammatory language towards Europe was matched by Erdogan’s unexpected and sudden disparaging approach towards Israel in 2009, referring to the Jewish state as a “child-murderer state” at the Davos Economic Summit.
Erdogan severely tarnished Turkey’s global standing following the Arab Spring, especially in the Syrian Civil War. Under the direction of Ahmet Davutoglu, Erdogan’s “foreign policy wizard,” Turkey sought to inject itself not as a partner of Muslim powers seeking to rid themselves of autocratic rule but as a power seeking to usher in Muslim Brotherhood (MB) regimes, which Erdogan and Davutoglu attempted to project as organic democratic movements. In the case of Syria, Erdogan attempted to install a Sunni-MB regime directly through regime change. Turkey provided aid, weapons shipments, and fighter transits to Al Qaeda-affiliated extremist organizations that sought to topple the Assad regime.
By the time the Islamic State (ISIS) arose in Syria and Iraq (2014–2015), Erdogan overlooked the dangers caused by the so-called Caliphate and helped facilitate its bloody rampage, based on the premise that ISIS sought to overthrow the Assad regime. Such regional pursuits lost Turkey many friends and allies. Major Arab powers, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, saw Turkey’s actions as belligerent and destabilizing to the region’s security and cohesion. The United States and European powers also took exception to Erdogan’s increasingly erratic policies. While the United States and the emerging anti-ISIS Western coalition emerged, Turkey began striking the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which the United States built from the ground up as a capable force that degraded ISIS.
Similarly, in 2019, Erdogan took the fateful decision to purchase Russian weapons, resulting in Ankara’s removal from the F-35 fighter program and the imposition of U.S. sanctions. After Russia’s invasion of Russia in February 2022, Erdogan made it his personal mission to hold up NATO’s expansion by delaying Finland and Sweden’s entry into the alliance for months. Following the October 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel, Erdogan took a distinct position as the only NATO leader who not only criticized Israeli military actions in Gaza but also actively recognized Hamas as a group of “freedom fighters,” fully deserving of Turkish government support.
Prior to Erdogan, Turkey and the West had experienced difficult moments in history. During the Cold War, there were occasions when Ankara engaged in much soul-searching as to its role and place within the West. At no time, however, did Turkey ever burn bridges with its Western allies. Never did it ever give NATO, Europe, or Washington reason to distrust it. This is what Erdogan has done to the country that he has ruled with an iron fist while imposing his ideological and Islamist worldview. As relations stand, Washington is only interested in keeping Turkey at arm’s length, transactionally engaging with it for a limited series of goals. Europe is only interested in communicating with Ankara as long as Turkey is willing to help stem the tide of refugees from the Middle East. Other than Qatar, one cannot identify a single Muslim power in the region that perceives Turkey to be a predictable and responsible state actor. It is hard to state that Turkey is a trusted ally or partner of many countries.
Erdogan and his regime cronies have attempted to give this wrecking ball of a foreign policy an official sounding term: “strategic autonomy” from the West. One should call it out for what it really is—a disaster that has marginalized and diminished Turkey among friends and foes alike. Under Erdogan’s watch, one would find it hard, if not impossible, to describe any foreign policy portfolio that has furthered the country’s national interest. As a banal reflection, most Turkish citizens today are denied tourist visas from Europe. This is nothing but the result of disastrous governance.
Sinan Ciddi is a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Sinan on X: @SinanCiddi.
Image: Shutterstock.com.
