His name is
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and
before a rather uncomfortable referendum (many claim was illegal) that
reconfigured a parliamentary into a chief executive (presidential) form of
democracy, he was the frequently elected prime minister of Turkey. Today, with
that rewritten constitution, Erdoğan is going to be the president of Turkey with a great deal of new executive powers –
and their legislature with a lot less – that is making him look a lot more like
a dictator than an elected leader of a democracy. He’s even moved up the date
for an election based on this political changeover (scheduled for 2019) to this
year.
Erdoğan has been good for business. Conservative
Muslim clerics are also overjoyed that the secularism that became the backbone
of post-WWI Ottoman Turkey (the legacy of the legendary Mustafa Kemal Atatürk)
is eroding as Erdoğan slowly pushes an Islamic agenda onto his country. He has
arrested hundreds of military officers, journalists and clamped down hard on
any opponents.
Ostensibly a member of NATO, Erdoğan’s Turkey has
been anything but consistent in its support of the NATO mission against ISIS,
often attacking anti-ISIS Kurdish fighters – whom he considers “terrorists” by
virtue of their quest for more autonomy within Turkey – instead of focusing on
ISIS. Essential to regional stability, Erdoğan’s Turkey has vacillated between
condemning Assad (Syria’s Shiite dictator) and then joining in friendly
discussions with Damascus’ allies, Iran and Russia, to the consternation of the
United States.
Erdoğan has once again rattled the region. This time
in rather unsubtle moves against islands between Turkey and Greece, populated
by ethnic Greeks, which were last disputed in the 1990s, but since pretty much
settled down… until recently. “[In mid-April], a low-flying Turkish helicopter had passed
provocatively close to a military base on the nearby Greek island of Ro,
drawing warning shots from soldiers. That incident was followed three days
later by the death of a Greek fighter pilot who crashed, his government said, after attempting to
intercept a Turkish aircraft that had entered the country’s airspace.
“In all,
the number of incursions by Turkish military ships and jets into Greek territory
has spiked in recent months, according to Greek officials, stoking concerns of
a new military conflict in a region where Turkey is already embroiled in the
war raging in Syria.
“The
biggest uncertainty involves Turkey’s strongman president, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, and whether his ambitions are fueling renewed claims to these Greek
isles — particularly after he embarked on [April 18th] on an
election campaign in which he is expected to play heavily on nationalistic
sentiment.
“Indeed,
though the border issue has simmered for nearly a century, analysts worry that
the unpredictable nature of Mr. Erdogan makes the situation more volatile than
ever between the countries, nominal NATO allies, who almost fought a war
over an uninhabited island in nearby waters two decades ago.
“In
December, to the surprise of his hosts, Mr. Erdogan used the occasion of the
first visit to Greece by a Turkish president in 65 years to call for a redrawing of the border. That did not go down well.
“In
recent years, Mr. Erdogan has often stoked tensions overseas in order to
bolster his domestic standing, insulting several European governments,
deploying troops in Syria, and lashing out at the United States…
“‘Erdogan
is a little bit out of control — he’s picking a lot of fights and there is a
lot of uncertainty about how far he’s prepared to go,’ said Nikos Tsafos, who
researches the politics of the Eastern Mediterranean at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank… ‘The odds
of something going wrong are increasing on a weekly basis,’ he said.
“The
border issue has its roots in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the
aftermath of World War I, and in subsequent international treaties that gave
many islands that had once belonged to the Ottoman Empire — including
Kastellorizo [the dot on the right side of the above map], the nearest
permanently inhabited island to Ro — to other European powers.
“Today,
Turkey — which was formed from the rump of the Ottoman Empire — does not
contest Kastellorizo’s sovereignty. But the government feels it is unfair that
Greece should have the right to potentially exploit energy resources in parts
of the Mediterranean seabed that lie within sight of Turkey but many hundreds
of miles from the Greek mainland… ‘At the fundamental level, there is a different
perception of how the Aegean Sea should be treated,’ Mr. Tsafos said…
“The
Turkish government says Greece is to blame for the spike in tensions… ‘The
Greeks always want attention,’ said a senior Turkish official who asked not to
be named in accordance with Turkish protocol. ‘They’re like babies, and it’s
always been like that.’
“But
statistics released by Greece suggest a different narrative. According to the Greek
military, Turkish incursions into Greek
airspace rose to 3,317 in 2017 from 1,269 in 2014, while maritime incursions
rose to 1,998 from 371 in the same period.” New York Times, April 20th.
There are
purportedly oil reserves under the surrounding ocean bed, and Greece – a member
of the European Union – is no match for Turkey’s military, if it comes to
that. Would Erdoğan go that far? And if not, why all of these recent incursions into
Turkish air space? In a world bubbling with seething conflicts, is this an
arena that requires immediate global intervention to deescalate the tensions?
I’m Peter Dekom, and just when you
think you know where all the conflicts are focused comes something literally
out of left field.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment