"Η Τουρκία αποκτά πρωταγωνιστικό ρόλο στη Μέση Ανατολή". Μια πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα ανάλυση από τους Financial Times για το πώς ο Ερντογάν πέτυχε να απεξαρτηθεί η Άγκυρα από την επιρροή του Ισραήλ και να αποκτήσει δεσμούς με τους Άραβες γείτονές της και το Ιράν, εκμεταλλευόμενη το κενό ηγεσίας στην περιοχή και την ανησυχία των αραβικών καθεστώτων για την υποστήριξη των εξτρεμιστών από την Τεχεράνη. ΔΙΑΒΑΣΤΕ το άρθρο (στα αγγλικά).

Ankara pursues lead role in Middle East

By Roula Khalaf

It doesn’t take much to charm the Arab public after all. Combine romantic television drama and anti-Israeli comments and you win instant sympathy from public opinion. The simple formula has been well practised by Turkey, a former colonial power during Ottoman times now making its way back to the Middle East.

Driven by the ambitions of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, which has Islamist roots, and Turkish disappointment with Europe’s reluctance to embrace it, Ankara embarked on its Middle East journey with a soft approach: the export of weepy soap operas that have captured the Arab world’s imagination.

Its charm offensive was followed with strident criticism of Israel during the December Gaza offensive, which strained relations with the Jewish state but went down well with the Arab public.

Tourists from Arab countries are pouring into Turkey. In Israel, meanwhile, an opinion poll found that 56 per cent of respondents believed Israeli tourists should boycott Turkey.

Though Ankara was the leading mediator between Israel and Syria last year, its effort to play a bigger regional role role in Middle Eastern politics has been stepped up more recently.

Last month, Turkey cancelled air force exercises with Israel. A few weeks later Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, arrived in Tehran to declare Iran’s nuclear programme “peaceful and humanitarian” – not the message that western powers negotiating with the Islamic republic wanted Ankara to deliver.

Around the same time, Turkey removed border restrictions with Syria, confirming the advance in relations with a difficult neighbour. Ankara has even improved relations with the Iraqi Kurdish minority whose autonomy in the northern region has long been seen by Turkish governments as a threat. These days, whenever tensions erupt in the region, including between Arab states, Turkey is certain to be offering itself as a mediator.

“There’s a new kid in town and it’s Turkey,” says Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of political science at Emirates University in Dubai. “They won Arab public opinion and they have become a role model.”

Until recently Turkey lay on the margins of the Middle East’s problems and solutions. Increasingly, though, moderate Islamists have been intrigued by the rise to power of the AK party in a traditionally fiercely secular country.

Two fundamental political factors have made Turkey more welcome as a regional influence, both by the public and by regional governments.

First, Ankara’s diplomatic outreach has stood in contrast to the more assertive Iran, which has pursued influence in the region by backing radical organisations and policies that puts it at odds with some of the leading Arab governments.

Second, Turkey’s pursuit of a role has been facilitated by the region’s power vacuum. The ability of traditional powers – essentially Egypt and Saudi Arabia – to shape events has diminished, as has that of the US, the main outside power.

Turkey’s advances in the Middle East come at a time when US attempts to breath new life into Palestinian-Israeli peace talks have faltered, undermining America’s Arab allies, who have little to show for their support of a negotiated solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Washington’s overtures to Iran too have been rebuffed.

Such is the desperation with existing powers and policies that Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, argues that Turkey now is well placed to make a bid for a pre-eminent leadership role within the Muslim and Arab world.

Egypt’s dominance has faded, he says, and Iran’s influence is constrained by its Shia identity in a mainly Sunni Arab world and its increasingly dysfunctional clerical leadership.

“Turkey is the only country in the Middle East that has integrated with modernity,” Mr Salem wrote in the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. “Iran, Egypt and other Arab countries are not the future. Turkey might well be. As a large Sunni country with deep historical roots in the region, this could be the beginning of Turkey’s century in the Middle East.”

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