Hüseyin Çiçek comments on Turkey and the Geopolitics of the West
In the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, Dr. Hüseyin Çiçek, political scientist and research assistant at EZIRE, comments on the geopolitical interrelations between Turkey and the West.
The relationship between Ankara and Washington had lately been problematic, Çiçek writes. Even though Turkish president Erdogan increasingly converted Turkey into an autocratic state und thereby acted contrary to the interests of the US, it was not in Washingtons interest to quit cooperation with its Turkish ally – at least as long as the geopolitical interests of collaboration prevailed.
Some Turkish actions had at least irritated the US, as Çiçek claims. The arrest of members of the US-State Department in Turkey was one example for Turkish actions that had provoked irritation. The detention and conviction of US-American pastor Andrw Branson was also noted with irritation, just as Ankaras vehement demand to turn in Fethullah Gülen.
Turkey, on the other hand, Çiçek writes, had likewise uttered its lack of understanding of Washingtons foreign policy in the Middle East. The support of the Kurdish YPG in Syria by US-president Trump and his predecessor Barak Obama was motivated, Erdogan claimed, by the aim of destroying Turkey.
But even though the relationship between Turkey and it’s Western partners has deteriorated lately, Çiçek is sure that Ankaras politics that contradicted international law will still be tolerated by Washington and Brussels in the near future. The Turkish combat mission in Afrin was not commented on by the US, just as the Turkish threat to target American military posts, if the US did not dissociate itself from “Kurdish terror units”. Washington still wanted to maintain the alliance with its Turkish partner. Accordingly, Çiçek concludes that even when Turkey continued with hostilities opposing international law, opposition by it’s Western partners was not to be expected.