2022 was ‘a defining moment’ for Turkish diplomacy

2022 will probably be remembered because the 12 months when Russia attacked Ukraine, beginning a troublesome struggle without end and escalating tensions between the West and Moscow.  

The 12 months has additionally seen some essential peace initiatives emanating from Türkiye, a NATO member, which has a working relationship with Russia on totally different conflicts like Syria, aiming to discover a widespread floor between Kiev and Moscow. 

Turkish peace efforts had been fruitful with some important outcomes, like the landmark grain deal and change of prisoners of struggle between Russia and Ukraine. Ankara has additionally launched different essential peace initiatives normalising its ties with Israel and Egypt, two vital Middle Eastern states, with which its relations had deteriorated within the 2010s. 

Gregory Simons, an affiliate professor on the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University, believes 2022 was “a defining moment” for Türkiye, which “managed to negotiate achievements that no other country can.”

According to Simons, “the example of Ukraine as a geopolitical shatter belt between US and Russia has seen Türkiye take a role as an honest broker in the conflict,” which reaffirmed the nation’s knowledge in establishing and creating an impartial balancing and mediating function within the present period of threat and uncertainty. 

Unlike many different Western states, Ankara’s exhausting work and persistence alongside political and financial tracks yielded progress just like the grain cargo settlement “in a highly divisive and emotionally driven geo-economic and geopolitical conflict,” showcasing Ankara’s rising place as a topic and never an object of occasions, Simons tells TRT World. 

In 2022, Türkiye emerged as “the world’s most important peace actor that left its mark on the year,” says Mesut Hakki Casin, a professor of worldwide regulation at Yeditepe University, referring to Turkish efforts to deal with the Ukraine battle. 

“While Turkey successfully demonstrated its neutrality policy in the Ukraine war, just as it did in the Second World War, it played the role of mediator in the conflict as stipulated in the 33th article of the UN,” Casin tells TRT World. During WWII, Ankara stayed impartial between Nazi Germany-led Axis international locations and the Allied forces, avoiding any casualties.  

Ukraine coverage

Despite a lot stress from the US and Europe, Türkiye has refused to be a part of Western sanctions on Russia, believing that speaking with Moscow is best than isolating it. But on the similar time, Türkiye has urged Russia to withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territories, fiercely defending Kiev’s territorial integrity. 

The Ukraine struggle has proven that “Türkiye in the 21st century pursues a fundamentally different foreign and security path than that played during the Cold War,” says Simons. In this path, Ankara acts as a bridge between the Western-centric and non-Western centric worlds, he says. 

Unlike the previous, when Ankara adopted a passive overseas coverage, underneath President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Türkiye has demonstrated the nation’s political and navy potential within the worldwide area from Ukraine to Central Asia. 

“Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the only leader capable of talking with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, working to develop a rapprochement between the two sides,” says Casin.

Beyond Turkish mediation efforts, Ankara has additionally taken an important step to shut its straits to each Russian and NATO warships in alignment with the Montreux Convention, which regulates the standing of Turkish channels. “With this crucial measure, Türkiye has prevented the spread of the Ukraine war to other areas particularly in the Black Sea,” says Casin. 

This measure additionally crucially led to setting demarcations within the battle between Russia and the West, limiting tensions between the 2 sides, based on the Turkish professor. 

Yasar Sari, an skilled at Haydar Aliyev Eurasian Research Center of Ibn Haldun University, additionally believes that Türkiye’s diplomatic efforts “have kept the Ukraine conflict limited,” stopping the struggle from turning right into a regional battle. 

Besides the Ukraine battle, Türkiye has displayed its mediation expertise in one other troublesome battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the Karabakh dispute, urging each Erivan and Baku to seek out widespread floor to deal with their variations. 

In October, Erdogan performed a crucial function to understand an icebreaker peace talks between Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders in Prague on the sidelines of an EU assembly. 

Middle East normalisations

During 2022, Türkiye additionally labored exhausting to de-escalate tensions throughout the Middle East, reestablishing its ties with Egypt and Israel and normalising its diplomatic connections with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Since a 2010 Israeli raid on Mavi Marmara, a Turkish assist ship travelling towards Gaza, which had lengthy confronted blockade by Tel Aviv, Turkish-Israeli ties skilled a deteriorating development. In 2013, Turkish-Egyptian diplomatic ties had been lower off after a coup led by general-turned-President Abdul Fattah al Sisi overthrew the nation’s first democratically-elected authorities. 

“Turkiye’s diplomatic initiatives have been very successful in opening a new page with all of the regional powers in the region. This is part of a broader trend in the region of trying to maintain diplomatic channels open among the major players,” says Gallia Lindenstrauss, a senior analysis fellow on the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), an Israeli think-tank. 

According to Lindenstrauss, Ankara’s normalisation with Israel signifies the depths of ongoing Turkish diplomatic efforts within the Middle East.

“The normalisation process with Israel has been noteworthy for the fact that contrary to the 2016 normalisation effort, this time around there were many more high-level visits, indicating that there is a more solid ground for the current normalisation,” Lindenstrauss tells TRT World. 

In March, Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with Erdogan in a groundbreaking go to to Türkiye. In September, one other high-level assembly between Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Erdogan was held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Erdogan additionally indicated that he wished to go to Israel after the November elections. 

This high-level assembly method to solidify ties between Türkiye and different states has additionally been apparent in Ankara’s normalisation course of with Egypt. Last month, Erdogan met Sisi in Qatar saying that “there should be no resentment in politics,” referring to previous tensions between the 2 states following the Arab Spring rebellions.

It’s an method that might go additional within the turbulent Middle East. “In the next period, just as it (Türkiye) has entered a (normalisation) path with Egypt, it can also enter another (normalisation) path with Syria,” the Turkish president mentioned. Ankara-Damascus ties have been lower off within the wake of the Syrian civil struggle, seeing hundreds of thousands of refugees flowing to Türkiye.  

During 2022, Erdogan additionally met UAE chief Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi and Mohammed Bin Salman in Ankara, displaying his dedication to strengthening previously strained ties with the 2 Gulf international locations.

Source: TRT World