More recently, the topic of Turkey and its use of fighters with Syrian war experience in a number of armed conflict zones has been discussed at length in the pages of NEO. However, the topic of foreign fighters in the current events in Ukraine, as well as the involvement of a number of NATO countries in sending them there, compels us to revisit this topic.

First, regarding foreign fighters “with Syrian experience”, the deputy head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Opposing Sides (CROS) in Syria, Rear Admiral Oleg Zhuravlev, said on March 5 that fighters of Albanian and Caucasian origin were heading to Europe from the US-controlled Syrian province of Idlib. They plan to further “take part in combat operations on the territory of Ukraine”.

On March 1, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Bashar Jaafari said that the USA might transfer terrorists of DAESH (a terrorist group banned in Russia) or members of other radical groups to Ukraine. According to the politician, this is being organized by the US special services. He also stressed that the use of mercenaries is a common practice in the US. “They moved terrorists from El-Hol camp (in northeastern Syria) to Al-Tanf area (territory seized by the US army) and from there sent them to Afghanistan and Burkina Faso,” Jaafari stressed.

In this connection, attention was also drawn to information that appeared in a number of media outlets that officers of the Ukrainian Security Service, together with officers of Turkey’s national intelligence organization, had recently visited northern Syria (including the settlements of Afrin and Azaz). In particular, a military diplomatic source told RIA Novosti that they visited the base of armed groups banned in Russia, in particular “Harakat Saurin” (part of the “Syrian National Army”), where they met with commanders of several pro-Turkish formations (“Firkyat Sultan Murad”, “Liwa Al-Muattasim”) as well as camps of the illegal armed groups. There, the possibility of recruiting fighters for Ukraine’s territorial defense was discussed with pro-Turkish formations and an agreement was reached to organize a series of secret meetings with “interested parties”.

Detection of a Turkish flag in one of the workshops for manufacturing homemade drone shells near Mariupol in the village of Sopino by the DPR military on 5 March is definite confirmation of the involvement of pro-Turkish militants in the current events in Ukraine on the side of Kiev-controlled military formations. Troops found large quantities of explosive devices and electronic components for drones there.

Moreover, according to Kosovo media reports, veterans of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), recognized as a terrorist organization in Russia and Serbia, intend to fight on the Ukrainian side. As the Balkanist portal notes, the Croatian nationalists who expelled the Serbs living there in 1995 from Croatia had previously volunteered to participate in Kiev’s military operations.

Internationalization of the Ukrainian war by Kiev has been acknowledged by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the US TV channel CNN, who said, among other things, that more than 20,000 mercenaries from 16 countries were being sent to Ukraine. On February 27, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the creation of a combat unit, into which he has invited citizens of foreign countries to join, and which has already been dubbed Kiev’s “foreign legion”. The Norwegian conflictologist Thomas Hegghammer has already pointed out in an interview with Der Spiegel that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a blatant political mistake in urging foreigners to fight in his country against Russia. Volunteers are also more difficult to control, he says, since they are less pragmatic and less willing to compromise than the local population. They are of little military use, but are often the ones who commit atrocities and violate ceasefires.

Nevertheless, militants from various countries have already started making their way into Ukraine in response to Kiev’s call. A large number of military personnel are now reportedly on Polish territory and are involved in smuggling weapons and fighters into Ukraine.

A number of Western countries have previously officially allowed their citizens to go to Ukraine and join the “foreign legion”. In particular, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Croatia, Poland and Latvia have endorsed the sending of mercenaries at national level. Meanwhile it is already known that the backbone of this “army of mercenaries” will be nationalists and far-rightists of all stripes from Europe and America.

A certain proportion of these mercenaries are Western private military companies, which were present in Ukraine even before the special operation by Russian troops began. They are led by the US, and consist mainly of Eastern European nations, with Poles in particular tending to be the majority. These PMCs were used by Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq, in overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi. PMC services are very expensive, so they will certainly be paid for by “Western sponsors”, as “Zelenskyy’s state” is now bankrupt. It is therefore naive to suggest that Zelenskyy’s call for a “foreign legion” was made by himself. This is clearly Washington’s tactical line to escalate the Ukrainian conflict. The “US leadership” in deepening the armed conflict in Ukraine is also evidenced by a report in the possession of The Washington Post showing that the Pentagon had significantly increased its military aid deliveries to Kiev long before the Russian special operation began. Moreover, according to the declassified document, the US Department of Defense “was equipping Ukrainian fighters with arms and equipment useful for fighting in urban areas.”

Another category of “foreign helpers of Kiev” will be outright Nazis who hate Russia and Orthodoxy fiercely. The most prominent of these are the Croats, about 200 of whose representatives are now based in besieged Mariupol and holding tens of thousands of people hostage. Representatives of such groups are very aggressive and they are not part of the European right-conservative political community, which is largely sympathetic to Russia because of its strong defense of traditional values.

It is frankly surprising that there are Israelis in the ranks of such ultranationalists and Nazis. It would seem that they cannot stand idly by as monuments are being erected in Ukraine to those who were exterminating Jews by the tens of thousands, burning, stabbing, shooting and burying them alive in mass graves. The names of these executioners, whose hands are up to their elbows in Jewish blood, are called streets and schools in the cities. Because of the policies pursued by the Kiev authorities, these murderers are now heroes for Ukraine.  But nevertheless, Israeli mercenaries chose to betray the memory of the Jewish people who suffered under fascism, at the behest of the White House to stand up for the Nazi authorities in Kiev.

The Israeli media reported that Israelis, in particular former fighters of the Golani brigade, are already fighting in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Territorial Defense Forces. This was reported on the telegraph channel Israeli Working Life, which even published a video showing one of these fighters being interviewed in Hebrew. The Ukrainian newspaper Donpress also reported that the first Israeli special forces veterans had already arrived in Ukraine, quoting Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko. Moreover, several Ukrainian media outlets quoted the Israeli portal Ynet as saying that trainees from the Israeli army’s elite units are taking part in the war with Russia on Ukraine’s side.  All this raises a lot of questions for the official current authorities in Israel!

On March 2, Japanese newspapers reported that Tokyo was ready to send 70 Japanese “volunteers” to the Ukrainian front. The Japanese Mainichi Shimbun reported that about 50 of them were former members of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.

Groups of young Danish citizens have already left for Ukraine, Danish news agency Nyheder.TV2 reported on March 1, specifying that the young Danes have only three months of military service as their only military experience. So the likelihood of any of them returning from the Ukrainian battlefield alive is small…

The US publication Vice published on March 2 an interview with a former British military officer who is already in Ukraine. Britain’s retired Royal Marines have already arrived in Ukraine to fight the Russians, said Fox News journalist Lucas Tomlinson. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss gave permission for Britons to fight on the side of Kiev’s neo-Nazis, but on March 6 she was opposed by the head of the Royal Armed Forces’ General Staff, Admiral Tony Radakin, who said that it was “illegal and useless” for Britons to fight against Russia in Ukraine.

A short while ago, the Senegalese Foreign Ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to protest over the recruitment of its nationals to take part in military operations. The communiqué said it was about a Facebook post by the Ukrainian embassy in Dakar that called for Senegalese volunteers to take part in the armed conflict in Ukraine.

About 60 mercenaries are known to have left Georgia for Ukraine. According to unofficial data, 15 of them have already died…

The mercenaries sent by Western countries to help Kiev will not be entitled to POW status, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov has said. Their fate is therefore unenviable.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Turkey has recently been receiving a considerable amount of attention in the publications of various media outlets. However, much of the reporting revolves around the attitude of Ankara and the Turkish president himself towards various armed conflicts, where Turkey still plays a major role.

One example of this is the Turkish leader’s offer to mediate in the Ukrainian crisis, which has been widely reported in the media from different (and not always flattering for Ankara) perspectives. However, Erdogan would continue to pump his combat drones into Ukraine and deepen his military cooperation with Kiev, under which circumstances any reasonable reader is bound to ask: what is the nature of the “mediating role” that Ankara plays here? It looks more like an attempt at fomenting a military crisis with Erdogan aligning himself with Kiev, thus siding with NATO, of which Turkey is a member, as well as with Washington, which has long exercised external control over Ukraine, both directly and through various intermediaries.

Ankara’s continued activity in sending its fighters from Syria to a number of conflict zones has also not been off the newswire. In particular in Libya, where the international community and the members of the 5+5 Joint Military Committee had previously decided that foreign troops stationed on the territory of the North African state should return home. To this notion, Turkey has responded by officially declaring its readiness to withdraw some 150 fighters from Libya. However, Al-Hadath reported on February 17 that at least 150 new Syrian fighters have arrived in Libya to take part in military operations there. Most are members of the illegal Muhammad al-Fateh Brigade (banned in Russia), which is linked to groups loyal to Turkey. According to journalists, the mercenaries were recruited with the participation of the Turkish military, which organizes their delivery from Idlib province in Syria to Tripoli. Moreover, according to journalists, the Turkish Defense Ministry allegedly pays for the services of Syrian mercenaries in Libya, in particular paying up to $200-250 to field commanders. The supply or exchange of pro-Turkish mercenaries in Libya has been a regular occurrence in recent months. Along with armed gangs, militants represent one of the main challenges to the peace process in that country.

The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Rami Abd al-Rahman, also confirmed the information about Turkey’s ongoing deployment of Syrian mercenaries in western Libya on the Libyan television channel Al Masar on February 22. According to him, Erdogan continues to import groups into Libya under the guise of the agreement made with the former Tripolitan Government of National Accord (GNA). The militants are recruited by Turkish intelligence in Syria and then given legal cover in an African state through a security company. However, Al-Rahman stressed that a number of Arab media outlets were unwilling to cover the issue and expressed his suspicions about the existence of agreements between Erdoğan and some countries in the region in the context of the media war.

The media, however, continues to uncover Turkey’s involvement not only in sending fighters to other countries, but also in producing forged papers for them and former members of terrorist groups, including DAESH (banned in Russia). They allow militants to travel freely not only to Libya, but also all over Europe, as well as the United States.

The Guardian, for example, has managed to track down those who make and sell fake documents for dozens of radicals linked to DAESH, who then quietly cross the border into Syria, presenting such documents, and travel around the world. Such documents cost $5,000 to $15,000, and the holder of a fake passport receives an almost one hundred per cent guarantee that he will cross the border into Turkey without incident. British journalists have been able to track down one of the clandestine document forgery firms run by an Uzbek national living in Turkey. His business is going so well that he has set up a special Telegram channel with the serious name Istanbul Global Consulting. Answering the journalists’ question about whether terrorists or dangerous extremists might use his products to evade justice, the businessman said he did not ask his customers what group or movement they belonged to.

It begs the question: why aren’t the Turkish authorities and law enforcement agencies themselves interested in this “business” and covering it up?

Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the activities of such “businessmen” from Turkey and his colleagues in other states have been expanding recently, as such firms take advantage of the residents of refugee camps in Syria, such as Al-Hol camp, which hosts some 60,000 women and children associated with DAESH militants. In addition, according to The Guardian, since the Taliban (banned in Russia) seized power in Afghanistan, there have been many Afghan refugee “clients” in Turkey who use fake passports to board a plane to a Western country in Turkey and then apply for asylum upon arrival.

The products of such clandestine firms also allow individuals to disappear without a trace – simply order a fake death certificate for just $500 and send it to the consulate of the client’s country, as no one will go to the morgue to check who is really lying there.

In addition, it was recently reported in the media that Turkey has become the largest source of military equipment for radical Islamists. The Turkish Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) has also confirmed this information, publishing a new report that reveals the involvement of three construction companies from the port city of Mersin in the arms trade with DAESH militants. Weapons and components for the UAVs were purchased for the most part in China and then transported by sea through Ankara-controlled territory to the militants. The harbor, where local firms were based, occupied a central part in the supply chain. MASAK officials report that Altun İnci Construction supplied several million dollars worth of already well-known Turkish UAVs and weapons to DAESH in 2015-2016. In its report, MASAK notes that the Turkish Intelligence Service (MİT), among others, monitored the firm and its leader. However, it is not entirely clear why the criminal DAESH arms supply network was not exposed and dismantled earlier?

And this is a fairly incomplete list of information circulating in various media about Turkey and its links to militant and extremist groups, including in Ukraine. Let’s keep an eye on it together!

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The next Turkish general elections are scheduled for June 2023. The incumbent Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to run as a People’s Alliance presidential candidate, a coalition that had been formed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in power since 2003 (first, as prime-minister). In 2007, he pushed through amendments to the Constitution that would mean that the president would be elected by popular vote (earlier the president was elected by parliament). In August 2014, he won the first direct presidential election in the country mustering 51.8% votes. In 2018, Erdogan won snap presidential election on the first ballot enlisting the support of more than 52.5% voters.

However, in today’s crisis-ridden Turkey, Erdogan’s popular support is dwindling. The latest polls conducted in Turkey by independent research organizations attest to an aggravating social and political crisis in the country, with some experts saying that internal situation could exacerbate, a development that would entail further crackdown by the current authorities on the opposition. According to a slew of analysists, the Turkish economy has entered a period of a prolonged recession that is in part driven by the increasing side effects of the current economic growth model and social and economic fall-out from the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic. The country has faced double-digit inflation, rising unemployment, weakening of the national currency and outflow of foreign investment. Analysts say that Turkey’s economic prospects look increasingly bleak amidst wide-spread youth unemployment and exacerbating poverty.

As an information and analytical Turkish portal Duvar reported on February 18, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced the results of the “2021 Life Satisfaction Survey,” which revealed that the proportion of Turks who say they are “happy” has decreased from 59.6 percent to 49.3 percent in the past 19 years. In other words, the survey covers the period when Turkey was ruled by the Justice and Development Party led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The study also questioned Turks regarding their “life expectations in the upcoming year.” The results showed that the proportion of those who said “it could get worse” increased from 9.3 percent in 2003 to 33.8 percent in 2021.

According to a recent report by the Istanbul Municipality’s Planning Agency (IPA), most people in this Turkish metropolis are left “desperate and hopeless” by the state of the economy, with a large proportion claiming last month that their economic outlooks are bleak.

Given these circumstances, the opposition is calling on Erdoğan to step down, and the police have investigated people for using social networks to organize demonstrations. In addition, the debates regarding Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s right to run for president again are raging on, with the elections scheduled to take place in 2023. The sticking point is that according to the Constitution, the leader of the republic cannot be elected for more than two terms if the elections are proceeding according to the schedule. For that reason, Erdoğan’s critics think that he may not legally run in the upcoming elections while many, including MPs, some of whom represent opposition parties, believe otherwise.

The president’s ally and leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahceli, claims that nothing impedes Erdogan to run for office again. He made this statement after one of former ministers and members of the Justice and Development Party Ertuğrul Günay had said that if the election were to be held as scheduled, the incumbent leader could not run for president and would be able to do so only in case of snap election.

Bahceli and other Erdogan’s allies argue that the president was elected only once since the reform of the political system had taken place, which allegedly offsets the Constitution’s disputed paragraph in his specific case. At the same time, the MHP leader stressed that if there were a need to introduce constitutional amendments to extend the president’s term, his party and the AKP would do their best to make that happen. Some critics, however, say that such amendments would require a two-third parliamentary majority with MHP—AKP falling short of this number in the Grand National Assembly.

However, the opposition reacted to this bickering with surprising indifference. This could be explained only by the fact that Erdogan is swiftly losing support of Turkey’s population as opposition strongly believes that he would lose.  At the same time, as for the reasons for the incumbent president’s dwindling popular support, the opposition has been citing not only Turkey’s deteriorating social and economic prospects due to Erdogan’s domestic policy blunders. A role in this process was also played by the Turkish authorities’ brutal crackdown on dissent that has only picked up steam after an attempted coup in 2016 and mass purges with thousands of Turks ending up behind bars. Neither does Erdoğan gain support by imposing religious way of life on the society considering that his push to islamize the country is frowned upon not only by the youth, but also by senior citizens that are used to the secular order. Besides, Turks have been witnessing ever-lasting major corruption scandals which force the most prominent members of the ruling AKP party to skedaddle, with some of them establishing new political organizations. These include former Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, former Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, and others who were at the root of the AKP. They argue that Turkey needs an entirely new vision for the future, claiming that “Erdoğan has exhausted the resources to continue his geopolitical experiment” and that its “economy cannot withstand his ambitious foreign policy.”

At the same time, with Erdogan still in power, there is an apparent lack of charismatic political leaders, which gives the incumbent president a chance to splinter the opposition and win the 2023 elections even against the backdrop of his dwindling popularity. All opposition figures operating in the country are not independent and try to entrench themselves in electoral terms as they rely on various alliances with Western external forces. The political landscape is shaky, a situation that was clearly understood by the US which made a “sudden” U-turn in the Eastern Mediterranean towards Turkey, saying that it no longer supports the Greek-Israeli EastMed gas pipeline project. Moreover, according to US-based Foreign Policy magazine, Washington has faced the danger of losing Turkey and is now trying to hinder its “rapprochement with the East” and therefore undoubtedly will make efforts to ensure Erdogan’s victory at the upcoming elections.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The relations between Ankara and Washington have for many years now been characterized as a  “fragile equilibrium.” Back when Erdogan just came to power, the US supported his Justice and Development Party, which, however, over time stopped being an American project and gained independence. Barack Obama, for instance, hoped that Turkey would become an exemplary democratic country populated mostly by Muslims, a kind of bridge between Europe, the Middle East and the Islamic world. The former US leader considered Erdogan to be a moderate Muslim leader, and named him one of only five colleagues, with whom he managed to build the most friendly and trusting relationships. But gradually both leaders became disillusioned with each other.

Relations between the countries were equally ambiguous during the “Trump era”, especially against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and also after Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the consequent transfer of the American embassy there from Tel Aviv. Erdogan would sharply criticize those steps. The United States, in turn, acknowledged that its ally, previously considered a Western mediator in the Middle East, now seeks to pursue an independent policy.

Of course, the United States needs Turkey as an outpost on the southern flank of NATO, as a security partner. None of the countries want to burn their bridges. In the last decade alone, Ankara spent about $33.5 million promoting its interests in the US, according to documents released by the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). These funds were enough for the Turkish authorities to build a stable network designed for the promotion of their interests, which operates at several levels of government: in the White House, in Congress, and in the media. Among Ankara’s political contractors, one can find influential parliamentarians and consultants who take part in the discussion of national security issues, foreign relations, and military affairs. A number of them act as legislative assistants, and some are included in commissions and committees responsible for writing and approving certain drafts. Ankara pays special attention to departments whose competence is international relations, the army and intelligence, as well as appropriations and finances.

Ankara is very active in cooperating with the media, and media control is given special attention by the Turkish Embassy in the United States. In mid-2014, the Ankara diplomatic department hired for such purposes Alpaytac, which coordinated work with the media and organized the publication of articles by Turkish officials on information platforms. Alpaytac reportedly spent $1.4 million on the media campaign in just one year.

Nonetheless, periodic waves of cooling in relations between Washington and Ankara continue to arise.

Thus, recently the United States announced the creation of a forward headquarters of American special operations forces in Albania, which, according to Washington’s calculations, will allow countering the influence of not only Moscow, but also Turkey in the Balkans, and will keep the Albanians “from a too close rapprochement with Ankara.” According to The Insider, Turkey has invested heavily in Albania, as both countries are members of NATO and profess Islam. However, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey is steadily moving away from the transatlantic alliance, and there are fears that Ankara will drag other NATO members with it.

Wherever Turkey sees prospects for its expansion, it collides with US plans. In the Transcaucasia and Central Asia, in Russia and Ukraine, in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea basin, in Central Asia and the Middle East, in Africa and the Balkans, in China – everywhere Turkey competes with the United States, seeking to reduce the latter’s influence and increase its own. In military terms, Turkey continues to strengthen its ability to solve foreign policy problems by force. A segment of Turkish air defense not controlled by the United States has been created through the acquisition of Russian S-400 systems, reconnaissance and sabotage forces that have lost many valuable specialists after personnel purges in 2016 are being restored, new destroyers and submarines are being built, and military presence abroad is increasing. In January 2020, the Turkish parliament approved the deployment of Turkish armed forces in 12 states: Azerbaijan, Albania, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Qatar, Kosovo, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Somalia and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Britain encourages Turkey in every possible way, maneuvering in its actions between pushing it away at the right moment for London or colliding with a suitable European country, after which it seeks to enter the space cleared by Turkey, be it Africa, the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia, Transcaucasia or the Balkans.

As a result, the United States is increasingly inclined to believe that Turkey is turning from an ally of the United States into its rival, which is why the strategic plans of these two states clash. This is despite the fact that Turkey retains economic, political and military dependence on the United States and NATO, and Biden’s entourage has already given a command to the allies to do everything possible to keep Turkey in the sphere of influence. However, the vortex of conflict between the US and Turkey continues from incident to incident, with each side accusing the other of provocative behavior.

Erdogan not only saw the gaps formed in the once monolithic system of the Pax Americana world, but also realized that in the new changing world, where tectonic shifts in geopolitical platforms either form new continents or crush those who are between them, Turkey in its former state can just disappear. Therefore, more and more often in the speeches of Turkish politicians one can hear Ankara’s obvious criticism of the United States and the policy pursued by the White House.

One example of this is the statement of the Turkish political scientist Mehmet Perincek in an interview with the Sputnik Azerbaijan news agency on February 7, that, after the shameful defeat of the United States in Afghanistan and the unsuccessful attempt at a color revolution in Kazakhstan, Washington’s plans in Central Asia are completely destroyed. However, according to him, Ankara’s actions can serve as a positive example against this background, in particular, in building up post-war processes in the South Caucasus, rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also began to actively support criticism of the United States and the West, emphasizing, in particular, that Western bogeyman stories about Russia allegedly intending to invade Ukraine only lead to increased panic and a worsening economic situation in the country.  In an interview with TRT, Çavuşoğlu said that “unnecessary statements” that Russia would allegedly “invade” Ukraine should be avoided, as this would cause unrest in the country and economic damage to it.

On February 8, Secretary General of the Turkish Vatan (Motherland) party, Dogu Perincek, spoke out against the position of the United States and NATO, predicting the “death” of NATO in the event of the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance to the east. He also urged to prevent the arrival of NATO forces in the Black Sea, pointing out that such a move by Brussels would have complex consequences for the region. “Greece and Ukraine are under the nose of Turkey, the US is stuffing both countries with weapons, aircraft to carry out provocations. We understand that Ukraine, like Greece, serves the interests of Washington. Inviting the US to the Black Sea will have very complicated consequences. It is necessary to prevent outside forces from entering the Black Sea,” Dogu Perincek said.

The Americans do not need a strong Turkey having good relations with Russia, Yeni Şafak points out. This leading Turkish publication recalls that when the war in Syria began, the United States had already tried to push Ankara and Moscow, but they did not succeed, despite a number of provocations.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Recent years have been increasingly marked by numerous migration crises. Fleeing from wars, armed conflicts and various militant activities, migrants from Africa and Asia continue to make dangerous attempts to enter Europe by various, often risky and dangerous, means. As a result, many of them die at sea, and the coastguards of various countries have to rescue hundreds of survivors.

Last December alone, Euronews reported that more than 270 illegal immigrants were rescued in the central Mediterranean in three rescue operations by the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch. Meanwhile, in the Sicilian ports of Pozzalo and Trapani, more than 300 other previously rescued migrants have come ashore. At the same time, more than 30 people died in Greek waters in late December. Local authorities blame the tragedy on smugglers who prefer to send migrants along the dangerous route from Turkey to Italy to avoid patrols.

The “Belarus route” became unexpectedly “popular” with illegal immigrants in 2021, but the Polish and Lithuanian border guards and their army have stood in the way of those wishing to settle in Europe, and there have even been casualties as a result of their actions. Regarding the conditions of detention of refugees in these countries, Lithuanian human rights experts have released a document which shows that these conditions amount to “inhuman or degrading treatment” at the Lithuanian Alien Registration Center (ARC) in Kibartai. This is said in particular in a report published by the Lithuanian Seimas ombudsmen, according to Delfi.lt. It is also noted that the ARC has not adequately ensured the right of migrants to be informed about their obligations and rights. Lithuanian Seimas Ombudsman Erika Leonaitė expressed the view that detention of illegally arrived migrants should not turn into punishment. The ombudsmen found these conditions unsatisfactory, inhumane and degrading for refugees, especially considering that the Kibartai Alien Registration Center is a prison. In Lithuania, the refugee camps are violent and abusive, and there have been repeated protests there, with people demanding food, water, warm clothing and the chance to communicate with their relatives.

The refugee situation is no better in Poland. Polish security forces have killed more than 240 migrants trying to cross the border from Belarus. This was stated by Emil Chechko, a serviceman who fled from Poland to Belarus. According to him, he was first involved, as part of Polish security forces, in the killing of migrants on June 8, 2021 near Siemianówka. The bodies of migrants were buried in prepared pits in the forest. Chechko also said he knew of other acts of killing refugees.

The refugee situation in Libya is also in the cluster of humanitarian disasters. About one hundred thousand migrants have been intercepted and taken to Libya over the past five years since the EU began working with Tripolitan authorities to block Africans from reaching European shores. Many of those returned to Libya, including women and children, are held in government detention centers where they suffer abuse, including torture, rape and extortion. Amnesty International reports on multiple abuses in Libyan refugee camps and has called on the European Union to change its migration policy towards Libyans.

More than 170 citizens and organizations have joined this criticism, also testifying to the appalling situation there, and calling on the Italian government to tear up its agreement with Libya on combating migration. A statement signed by European and Libyan human rights activists reads that the system established with the EU financial and political support in no way prevents violations of migrants’ rights in Libya. It indirectly creates an atmosphere for more inhumane practices and has proved meaningless in terms of providing effective protection to refugees who find themselves in a North African state.

However, despite reports by international organizations and calls by human rights defenders, Italy and the European Union in general continue to turn a blind eye to the crimes and refugee situation in Libya, while helping Libyan authorities improve their ability to monitor the sea, providing economic aid and equipment.

According to the UN, thousands of refugees and migrants are held in some 20 official detention facilities in Libya, some of which are controlled by armed groups, with a further unknown number of people in totally uncontrolled centers, effectively run by human traffickers. International human rights organizations claim that widespread abuse and crime, including beatings and forced labor, are prevalent in such places. The vast majority of refugees in Libya are from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Gambia and other African countries. The main migration routes pass through the south of the country. All routes to the coast are controlled by armed groups, and the cost of transit, depending on the nationality of the refugees, can be as much as $10,000 per person. There is ample evidence of the slave trade, the holding of migrants in prisons for ransom, and the use of international aid for their own purposes. In particular, there have been reports that GNA coast guard personnel were recruited from the same groups involved in banditry, smuggling and slave trade, and its activities are not actually monitored or intervened in by the EU. GNA coast guards have been documented multiple times to deliberately fail to rescue migrant vessels in distress, or to even attack them. In addition, the same coast guards earn money from smuggling drugs, organs and slave trade. A report by the EU’s external border security agency described the involvement of several NPOs in smuggling, inadvertently suggesting the possible involvement of the coast guards in such business and the “cooperation” of individual European politicians.

This has intensified growing criticism of Europe’s migration policy. At least three requests have been submitted to the International Criminal Court to investigate Libyan and European officials, as well as human traffickers, law enforcers and others for crimes against humanity.

All this requires the European authorities to increase control over this area and to take appropriate measures, through the leverage and capacity available, to end this humanitarian catastrophe.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

As of late, various media have been publishing numerous reports about the involvement of Turkish law enforcement agencies and special services that are supervised directly by Erdogan in blatantly illegal operations in several countries.

Thus, in recent years, the Turkish agencies have kidnapped dozens of people in various countries. Since 2016, or after the attempted coup d’état which Ankara pinned on the well-known preacher and opposition figure Fethullah Gülen, now living in the US, the estimated total of the “Gülenists” abducted outside Turkey has reached 200 people. Back in the day, this figure was disclosed by Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.

For one, in 2018, Veysel Akcay, the leader of the local educational network Sebat, was kidnapped by three “unidentified persons” in the Mongolian capital. At the time, those schools were built and opened by people close to Fethullah Gülen in many countries of the world. A similar incident recently occurred in Kyrgyzstan: on June 1, 2021, amidst the beginning of Kirghiz leader’s visit to Ankara, Orhan Inandi, the head of Turkish lyceums in the country and the citizen of Turkey and Kyrgyzstan (where he was also in charge of the network of private Turkish educational institutions Sebat), “vanished” in Bishkek.

Such “incidents” have become increasingly frequent in Ukraine, a home to a significant number of Turkish immigrants, including those who are anti-Erdogan. And indeed, on September 11, 2020 Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) abducted a famous Kurdish politician, Isa Özer in Odessa. The Ukrainian media report, this was not the first abduction of Erdogan’s opponents by Turkish special services in Ukraine. In 2018, two persons were smuggled away — the politician and businessman Salih Zeki Yiğit and the journalist and blogger Yusuf İnan.

Turkish opposition figures were first persecuted under the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in 2018 when the raids on Turkish political refugees were staged. It was back then that the Turkish secret services, with the approval of the Ukrainian government, took away Yusuf İnan, Salih Zeki Yiğit, critics of current Turkish authorities, from Odessa and Nikolaev. According to the Ukrainian media sources, this “extradition” hinged on “personal agreements between Poroshenko and Erdogan”, including the deal on the establishment of an autocephalous Ukrainian church, a move for which the support of Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew played a crucial role.

Yunus Erdogdu, a Turkish journalist blacklisted as an opposition leader in Turkey and now living in Kyiv, also fears to be extradited by Ukraine to Ankara, as does a hundred or so Turkish dissidents.

Indeed, on 26 January, Turkish special services kidnapped another political emigre and a former Turkish army officer, Nuri Gökhan Bozkır on Ukraine’s territory. Today, several Turkish media outlets reported that he had been brought over to Turkey as they published his photo with a bruised face. By the time of the abduction, Gökhan allegedly filed a request for political asylum in Ukraine. The Turkish media state that this “forceful extradition” of Gökhan by the Turkish intelligence could have been personally approved by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with the explicit consent of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

The retired officer of the Turkish special forces Nuri Gökhan Bozkır, however, was not just a “Gülenist” or another Erdoğan critic. As of recently, he gave several revealing interviews in Ukraine and disclosed that the Turkish special forces had been delivering massive shipments of weapons and ammunition to Syria and other flashpoints in Asia and Africa for a long time. Gökhan used to take part in illegal shipments of weapons from Turkey to the Middle East, another Turkish political emigre and journalist Yunus Erdoğdu previously told Ukrainian media outlet Strana. Gökhan corroborated that story to Ukrainian journalists and went out to describe in detail his active involvement in those MIT special ops as a liaison officer.

Gökhan previously served as an officer in the elite special forces units of the Turkish army. He took part in Turkey’s military operations in Iran, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Azerbaijan, for which he was more than once decorated by the government.

In 2007, the Ankara military tribunal dismissed Gökhan in the rank of yüzbaşı (captain) accusing him of divulgence of state secrets and sentencing him to six years in prison. Gökhan’s prosecution, as several Turkish political emigres in Ukraine contend, started after his had revealed the data on the arms shipments from Turkey to the Middle East, an activity this Turkish servicemember had been previously involved in. Once released from prison, Gökhan went into business. He was primarily engaged in supplying his clients with support military materiel — equipment, food supplies and humanitarian aid in the countries marred by armed conflicts. The main recipients of his goods were the Turkmen tribes in Syria, a volatile place even at that time. In 2012, when civil conflicts in Syria spiraled into open war, Gökhan received an offer from his Syrian partner, the field commander of the Turkmen militia Khalil Harmid, to start arms shipments instead of humanitarian aid. Khalil Harmid vouched that Turkish authorities would look favorably upon such business and introduced Gökhan to MIT officials who would be supervising the arms shipments. According to Gökhan, funds for arms shipments were funneled in a peculiar way: containers with cash arrived in the Turkish city on Syria’s border. Gökhan says he bought arms throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia from 2012 to 2015. In other words, the suppliers were mainly former members of the now-defunct Warsaw Pact and CIS (although contracts were documented as arms shipments to Turkey). On average, depending on the type of the “good”, an arms package would cost from $2 to 4 million. From 2012 to 2015, Nuri Gökhan Bozkır delivered 49 weapon transports to the Turkomans. To support his words, Gökhan handed over to Ukrainian reporters his video archive featuring several such operations.

In 2015, Gökhan emigrated to Ukraine and received a residence permit there. In 2018, acting via his trusted lawyer, former officer filed a lawsuit with a Turkish court to exculpate and reinstate himself in the military rank as he threatened to expose in the media the truth about the pressure and harassment army officers had to endure as well as corruption schemes in Turkish government structures. On July 10, 2019 those moves led to the former Turkish officer being detained in Kyiv at Ankara’s request while Turkish Prosecutor’s office included him in an Interpol Red Notice.

Roman Denisyuk, Gökhan’s lawyer, told the Ukrainian newspaper Strana that “there is a lot of information coming from various sources saying that the Ukrainian authorities promised to assist the Turkish president in the extradition of Nuri Gökhan Bozkır back to Turkey. This was one of the conditions for Turkey’s support of Ukraine’s foreign policy and economic cooperation.”

No doubt that this witness and perpetrator of criminal actions of the Turkish intelligence agencies has become dangerous for the current Turkish authorities, and as a result, he was kidnapped by MIT operatives on January 26 in the Ukrainian territory.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

In the last few years, Turkey’s economy has been caught in a drawn-out recession, largely due to the increasing costs related to the current model of economic growth. And as the economy is deteriorating, so is the political and economic situation in the country, forcing President Erdogan to make choices which are far from popular.

When Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party came to power at the beginning of the 2000s, Turkey placed all its hopes in a strategy of stimulating economic growth. In order to achieve this the Turkish government ramped up government spending and providing loans to stimulate the economy, and for many years the Central Bank kept the base rate to almost zero to support a high level of business activity. Turkey borrowed money in order to cover its budget deficit and negative foreign trade balance, and as a result its foreign debt has increased dramatically, from $104 billion in 2000 to $400 billion today. This formula allowed it to achieve rapid growth, and its economy has grown by an average of 5% every year since 2002, boosting standards of living and transforming Turkish business into a driver of development.

But since the US raised interest rates in summer 2018, developing markets, including Turkey, have suffered from capital flight. This problem has coincided with the imposition of US sanctions against Turkish goods, causing the national economy to suffer its first serious currency crisis, in which the Turkish lira dropped form 4 to almost 7 lira to the USD in August 2018. But despite the alarming signs in the currency market, the Turkish authorities have abstained from reining in credit, preferring instead to keep interest rates low. President Erdogan therefore held out for a long time against increasing the base rate, which put the Central Bank under great pressure and had the effect of keeping foreign investors away. At the end of November 2021 the Central Bank reduced the base rate from 16% to 15%, accelerating the devaluation of the lira, which reached its lowest value in the last 20 years.

Currently the Turkish economy, if not actually in crisis, is at least going through difficult times. The lira is in free fall, currency reserves are declining and foreign debt and unemployment levels are increasing rapidly. On top of all this, the pandemic has had a severe effect on the economy. Nureddin Nebati, Turkey’s Budgetary and Finance Minister, has warned that the annual inflation rate will remain high, at about 40%, for the next few months. But he could not rule out the possibility of it reaching as high as 50% Independent experts, however, calculate that the real inflation rate in the country is much higher, but the official figures are being kept low in order to support the government’s economic policies. For example, Steve Hanke, Professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University, has calculated that the real inflation figure in Turkey is 96%.

Given these circumstances, the opposition is calling on Erdogan to step down, and the police have investigated people for using social networks to organize demonstrations.

Erdogan is using all the tools available to him as President to find someone to blame for the problems, and replace the officials whom he considers responsible. Recently he has been changing the members of his economics team with alarming frequency. Thus he has replaced the head of the Central Bank three times in the last two and a half years and in December he appointed a new Finance Minister, Nureddin Nebati. And there was another high-profile replacement in April 2021, when the Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan was dismissed following a corruption scandal, and Mehmet Muş was appointed in her place. And now, as reported by the Financial Times, the President has dismissed Sait Erdal Dincer, head of the State Statistics Agency, after a reported disagreement on the national inflation statistics. Dincer had occupied the post for just 10 months, and was succeeded by the 40-year old Erhan Çetinkaya, who formerly served as vice president of Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Authority (BRSA).

The independent daily newspaper Cumhuriyet reports that several other senior Turkish civil servants have fallen foul of the President. According to the newspaper, those who may soon be replaced include Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the Foreign Minister, Mehmet Ersoy, Minister of Culture, Fahrettin Koca, Minister of Health, and Bekir Pakdemirli, Minister of Agriculture. The article’s authors emphasize, however, that it is unlikely that all these ministers will be replaced at the same time. The most politically significant of these replacements would be that of Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. The Presidential Press secretary, İbrahim Kalın, is slated to take over from him.

At the same time as replacing the head of the State Statistics Agency, Erdogan appointed Bekir Bozdağ as Minister of Justice, a post he occupied in 2013-15 and 2015-17. Significantly, Bekir Bozdağ was Minister of Justice in 2016, at the time of the attempted coup, after which the President conducted a purge of state bodies. More than 130,000 civil servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors and 29,444 military soldiers were dismissed from their positions, accused of membership of or sympathy with “terrorist organizations”, and many media outlets and NGOs were forced to close. Civil liberties campaigners argue that these repressive measures were aimed at marginalizing dissenting voices and concentrating all authority in the hands of the President.

Some Turkish media report that since then the authorities have been only slightly more restrained in their rush to accuse people of every imaginable crime, and it seems likely that as the 2023 presidential elections approach Erdogan will take steps to undermine his most serious competitors. Thus, in January this year alone 51 persons were arrested on suspicion of being linked to Muhammed Fethullah Gülen’s prohibited opposition group, known in Turkey as FETÖ, which Ankara accuses of organizing the 2016 attempted coup. According to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, these arrests were made during a counter-terrorist operation conducted by members of the anti-terrorism forces and officers from 28 districts of Ankara province. All the persons arrested were either acting or reserve members of the armed forces or heads of military educational establishments.

The systematic repression is having a very negative impact on morale in the Turkish armed forces, and recently the number of suicides has increased dramatically, and even according to official Ministry of Defense figures it now outstrips the number of deaths in combat. According to independent researchers, the number of “suspicious deaths” is almost 3 times higher than the Ministry admits. The Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF), citing data from the Brussels-based human rights group Solidarity with OTHERS, reports that a total of 82 people committed suicide following the mass purges in response to the 2016 attempted coup.

In January, the Turkish government announced that it has allocated 2 billion lira (approximately $150 million) for the construction of 36 new prisons – a clear indication of the authorities’ increasing use of the penitentiary system as a tool of repression. The decision was made as part of a program to increase investment in the security and intelligence services, launched with the approval of the President.

And in keeping with this policy of repression, President Erdogan has also resolved to tighten up control over the media, announcing penalties for media outlets that distribute content seen as “calculated to damage values.” In a statement, he insisted that Turkey needs to take steps to protect its “national culture” and counter the spread of “harmful content” distributed by the written, spoken and visual media. The President did not name any specific media organizations in the statement. He emphasized that legal measures would be taken to prevent the distribution of such content, and that overt or covert activities aimed at “destroying national and moral values” could not be tolerated. However, in addition to media organizations, individual journalists are also being targeted with repressive measures: last week the well-known journalist Sedef Kabaş was arrested after making a comment that was seen as a critical reference to the President on her Twitter account.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Turkey has lately shown signs of a clearly growing socio-political crisis in the country. Its economy is going through a difficult, if not disastrous, phase: the lira is plummeting, foreign exchange reserves are shrinking, external debt and unemployment are skyrocketing. Against this background, the approval rate for Recep Tayyip Erdogan as head of state has fallen below 39%, according to a Metropoll survey, raising more questions about the sustainability of the current political regime.

It is therefore not surprising that, in the short time remaining before the presidential and parliamentary elections in June 2023, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is actively seeking to present the country with convincing evidence that he can stabilize an economy that has experienced its worst times in two decades of rule, as well as the social and political situation in the country. However, apart from public declarations that the benefits of the current government’s economic policy will be seen in the coming summer, when there should be a reduction in the price of food and basic necessities, Erdogan has nothing concrete to offer Turks so far.

Against this background, the Turkish leader is placing even greater emphasis on using foreign policy activism to support his declining rating. A certain impetus for this was the failure of Erdogan’s idea of a military-bloc initiative, the Army of Turan, in the events in Kazakhstan, when it was not Ankara but the CSTO that was invited to resolve the situation in that country.

And so, through the national media, Erdogan has in recent days launched an active promotion of his steps to revise Turkey’s foreign policy and begin a new era based on peace, stability and diplomatic security with the countries of the region, as the Turkish Sabah wrote in particular on January 25. President Erdogan’s meetings with his advisers and aides, the publication stresses, included a comprehensive discussion of foreign policy issues and a decision to completely review and launch a “new phase”, forming working groups to develop relations with the US, Israel, Armenia, the Arab Gulf States and the Balkan region.

In this regard, the Turkish media have actively promoted Ankara’s steps to re-establish ties with Tel Aviv, the countries’ readiness to open embassies, and even the names of the ambassadors have already been decided. In addition, Erdogan has said that Israeli President Herzog may visit Turkey soon, and the Turkish foreign minister has already held his first telephone conversation with his Israeli counterpart since 2008. Erdogan also noted that the possibility of transporting Israeli natural gas to Europe via Turkey could be considered. As noted by the Israeli media, the above statements by Erdogan have had a major impact on the Israeli public and international news agencies.

Regarding the development of relations with the Arab Gulf states, Ankara already has close ties with Qatar and Kuwait, and has begun a new process of developing relations with the UAE. Improving ties with Saudi Arabia is also among the goals Erdogan’s government is seeking to achieve in its new foreign policy and, in this regard, the president has indicated his intention to visit the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in mid-February.

Local media also promote Ankara’s efforts to ensure that loyalist groups win the upcoming elections in Libya, with references to ongoing negotiations with individual Libyan tribes.

The Turks’ attention is drawn to Erdogan’s ongoing steps to normalize relations with Armenia: special envoys have already been appointed and reciprocal flights have begun, and there are plans to turn the Turkish province of Van into a tourist zone for Armenians.

President Erdogan made his first foreign visit of the year, Hürriyet reported, visiting Albania accompanied by a number of Turkish ministers, including Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, National Defence Minister Hulusi Akar and Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, among others.  The Turkish leader met with the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and discussed not only relations between the two countries, but also the development and problems of the Balkan region.

In January, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić at the presidential palace in Ankara, where they discussed stages of bilateral cooperation, economic issues and the resolution of the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In particular, Erdogan suggested, regardless of some details of the Dayton Agreement, that the three leaders — Bosnian, Croat and Serb — should meet together, either in Belgrade or Istanbul, after the elections.

However, it should be particularly noted that Erdogan has recently emphasized in his foreign policy activities the offer of Turkish mediation in resolving not only the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also a number of other crisis issues. Demonstrating a desire to be a world power, but lacking the resources to do so, Ankara has increasingly put forward initiatives to fit in with the global agenda and try to squeeze certain advantages for itself through dialogue, especially by focusing on various trade and transport projects. At the same time, while being interested in strengthening economic cooperation with Russia, with which Turkey has close contacts and a large trade turnover, Ankara very often demonstrates its commitment to the Anglo-Saxons and undermines Moscow’s efforts, especially in the post-Soviet space. In particular, this manifests itself in attempts to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv, while blatantly building privileged economic and politico-military ties with Ukraine, also profiting by extracting old technologies left in that country and delivering its own new military technologies, such as the Bayraktar strike drones, to test in combat there.

Thus, while adhering to a hard line towards Russia on the Ukrainian issue, Ankara has in recent days been active in its initiative to become a platform for settling differences between Moscow and Kyiv and even suggests that Putin and Zelensky meet personally in Turkey to discuss and settle the differences. Meanwhile, as part of the world’s unfolding conflict over global security, Turkey is increasingly demonstrating its commitment to the West by pumping combat drones into Ukraine. For its part, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) confirms that the Ukrainian military used a Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicle supplied by Ankara in Donbass for the first time on October 26, which already calls into question Ankara’s competence to mediate the Ukrainian crisis.

In addition, the Turkish president, while stating his commitment to a peaceful solution in the Caucasus, announced Ankara’s plans to hold another regional meeting in Turkey within the framework of the “3+3” platform. As known, the first meeting of the consultative regional “3+3” platform, co-chaired by the deputy foreign ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey and the Iranian foreign ministry director general, took place in early December in Moscow. The Georgian Foreign Ministry had earlier confirmed that Tbilisi was refusing to participate in the “3+3” regional consultative mechanism on the Transcaucasus.

Thus, President Erdogan, as the “Atatürk of the twenty-first century”, is trying to generate ambitious foreign policy initiatives, in the hope that they will secure his position as a leader with his sights set on building a new “Turkish splendid century”.

However, he forgets that not only the Turks, but also the outside world, are closely monitoring the situation in Turkey itself. And without real progress in domestic affairs, Erdogan will not be able to secure recognition on the global stage as a leader capable of resolving others’ problems and conflicts while getting bogged down in his own.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Even though the Biden administration did not invite Erdogan to the “democracy summit”, changing geo-political circumstances – in particular, the West (EU and the US) vs. Russia tensions around the former’s bid to expand NATO to Ukraine – seem to have changed, at least in Turkey’s eyes, Ankara’s importance for the West. From being a NATO pariah for past few years, Ankara seems to be crawling its way back as a key player that can mediate between the West and Russia. Although it remains to be seen whether both Russia and the West would want Turkey’s mediation, for Ankara the on-going situation does present a hitherto unavailable opportunity to reset it ties with the West on the whole. The plan was put into action in a recent meeting between Erdogan and EU ambassadors on January 13 in Ankara when Erdogan reiterated Turkey’s dream to join the EU bloc, calling it a “strategic priority” and a necessary step towards acting “with a long term strategic perspective rather than prejudices or fears.”

This push for a strategic reset has its roots in Ankara’s calculation that the US wants Turkey on its side in the emerging tensions with Russia. With Turkey being the second biggest military power within NATO, its support for Russia in any future conflict would weaken NATO from within. As a pro-Erdogan Turkish newspaper recently noted, in any possible conflict with Russia, the US would mobilise NATO rather than using its own military alone. This gives Ankara a chance to reset its troubled ties with the US. As the report further noted, “

“After all, at this very moment, the position that Turkey will take in the confrontation between Russia, the NATO alliance and the United States is more vital than ever. As a proven and indispensable member of NATO, Turkey is an important strategic partner for both sides.”

Ankara’s projections seem to have a valid ground. As reports in the western media have highlighted, the Biden administration is already weighing a Turkish proposal to buy a fleet of F-16 jets – a deal that many in Turkey’s policy making circles think could be vital for rescuing the US-Turkey ties from the state of dysfunction caused by the US support for Kurdish militias and Ankara’s decision to buy the Russian S-400 system.

It was with this in mind that Erdogan’s key aide Ibrahim Kalın  met Biden’s National Security Advisor in the second week of January. As the statement issued after the meeting shows, Ankara was particularly keen to project its role as a regional mediator – a strategic balancer – for the US. Ibrahim stressed that the “Ukraine crisis should be resolved through dialogue” and that Turkey is “determined to continue its role in ensuring peace and stability in the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.”

To a significant extent, the broad range of issues discussed in this meeting indicate Ankara’s willingness to calibrate its foreign policy in ways to bring it more in line with the US than has been the case during past few years.

Turkey’s emphatic projections of its foreign policy recalibration has also led to the re-opening of US-Ankara talks over F-35 fighter jets. In the 2nd week of January, Turkey’s defence minister, Hulusi Akar, confirmed that Turkish and the US officials will meet soon to discuss F-35.

It is again in keeping with its overall policy of rapprochement with the West that Ankara has taken steps to reset its ties with Israel as well. On January 18, Erdogan confirmed that his Israeli counterpart may visit Ankara soon to chart a way to develop a mode of cooperation based upon mutual “win-win.” This rapprochement involves Turkey’s push to bring Mediterranean gas to Europe via Turkey instead of via disputed territories claimed by both Turkey and Greece.

Roots of this rapprochement again have roots in how the US is itself cosying up to Ankara in the wake of Washington’s tensions with Russia. As US officials recently confirmed, the US no longer supports the project because it is creating regional tensions with Turkey.

Turkey has logically seen in the US decision a signal for itself to step up. As Erdogan said, “[If Israeli gas] would be brought to Europe, it could only be done through Turkey. Is there any hope for now? We can sit and talk about the conditions.”

While it is generally believed that Tukey’s politics of maintaining ties with the West and Russia makes it walk a tight rope, the fact of the matter is that Turkey sees walking this rope as a potential gateway to playing a big power role. Policy makers in Ankara think that maintaining good ties with both the West and Russia and offering to play a mediating role in conflict scenario has the potential to bring major geo-political dividends insofar as it allows Turkey to exploit global tensions to secure its vital interests, such as meeting its military needs by buying weapon systems from both sides.

Playing on both sides of global geo-political spectrum also allows Turkey a strategic leverage vis-à-vis its rivals within the wider Muslim world, in particular the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both of which are having troubled ties with the US within the current scenario.

While Erdogan sees in this scenario a real potential for realising Turkey’s goal to reposition itself as a key global player, it is obvious that the very foundation of this policy is highly unstable. The fact that it crucially depends on the state of West-Russia ties means that any meaningful improvement in their ties, or a long-term absence of any crisis situation, could erode the importance of Turkey for both the West and Russia within a changed scenario. Therefore, while Ankara thinks it needs to cultivate ties with both sides, it is yet to find a foundation that is both durable and not subject to the state of affairs between Russia and the West.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Turkey has lately shown signs of a clearly growing socio-political crisis in the country. Its economy is going through a difficult, if not disastrous, phase: the lira is plummeting, foreign exchange reserves are shrinking, external debt and unemployment are skyrocketing. All this raises doubts about the republic’s financial and economic prospects and the sustainability of the current regime.

The currency and debt crises in Turkey have been brewing for years. In particular, the Turkish economy went through a rather difficult period in 2016-2017 (after the attempted military coup) and the Turkish lira has been weakening consistently since 2017. However, with the Turkish lira having depreciated by more than 100% since September, no one can predict what will happen to the exchange rates and what the poverty rate will be. Economists and sociologists say that over the past 5 years, Turkey has lost all the real growth in prosperity that occurred in the 2000s and early 2010s. According to the World Bank’s World Economic Outlook, Turkey’s economic growth, which was 9.5% in 2021, will fall to 2% in 2022.

Many Turks who used to be Erdoğan’s supporters write on social media that they have become monstrously impoverished in recent years (that they cannot afford foreign goods, and food prices have risen so much that they have to dig through garbage cans). Online commentators make sad jokes that they did not anticipate that Erdoğan’s decision not to go to Europe would mean such a quick drift to Africa. The new economic model that the country’s ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), adopted at the end of its 19th year in power has only exacerbated existing poverty.

Under these conditions, a protest movement is growing in the country. For example, residents in the Turkish province of Hatay took to the streets because of regular power cuts. The Turkish Journalists’ Association (TGS) conducted a social survey which showed that some 73.5 per cent of the press corps in the country cannot live off their income. Employees in the Istanbul bureau of BBC went on strike to fight for higher wages. The people of Turkey blame the government’s and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s short-sighted policies for the protracted financial crisis.

Rapidly rising inflation in Turkey is hitting hard not only the low-income population but also the middle class, as consumer demand in the country has shrunk substantially. A sharp decline in consumer demand could lead to economic stagnation in the coming months and a new wave of unemployment. The galloping price increases have already forced the middle class to cut back on spending. The year 2022 has brought along another sharp increase in prices: natural gas prices have risen by 25% for households and 50% for industrial use; electricity prices have risen by 53% for citizens and 130% for companies. In addition, the prices of gasoline, car insurance and some tolls jumped.

As a result, monthly inflation in January is likely to reach 15%, exceeding even December’s figure of 13.5%. As for annual inflation in 2022, it could even exceed last year’s 36% – the highest rate in the 19 years of the AKP rule. Meanwhile, according to unofficial data from ENAG Inflation Research Group, an independent institution established in 2020 to track inflation in the country, the real annual consumer price inflation rate in Turkey was already 82.8% in December 2021.

As noted by the Turkish media, in addition to inflation reaching its highest level in two decades and the skyrocketing cost of living, the human rights situation in the country leaves much to be desired. As a result, unprecedented numbers of educated workers are fleeing the country for Europe, particularly Germany, and few, as the Turkish media outlets report, believe they will ever return. For example, according to the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), more than 8,000 doctors have left the Turkish public health sector in the past two years.

Against this backdrop, the Turkish president’s popularity is plummeting. According to a MetroPoll poll, about 10 per cent of religious voters are disappointed with the performance of President Erdoğan’s party, who is only the fourth most popular politician with only 37.9 per cent of respondents rating him positively. Thus President Erdoğan is significantly behind Ankara and Istanbul mayors Mansur Yavaş (60.4%) and Ekrem İmamoğlu (50.7%) of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), and even behind nationalist Good Party’s leader Meral Akşener (38.5%).

Another poll conducted by the Center for Social and Political Field Studies (Sosyo Politik) showed that support for the ruling AKP,  led by Erdoğan, has also fallen to 27%. Its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), is favored by 6.3%. In 2018, the level of support for the AKP and MHP was 37% and 7.3% respectively.

Under these circumstances, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party, said the Turkish president is pushing the country towards a civil war. The said assessment came after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “issued a warning” to anyone preparing to protest against the government. “They say they will take to the streets. Have you forgotten about the coup attempt? This nation then taught a lesson to those who took to the streets. We will sweep you off the streets!”, Erdoğan said in a January 4 speech to AKP.

In an attempt to support Erdogan, the Turkish government seeks to strip 28 opposition MPs of their immunity. At the same time, a Turkish court approved an indictment by the Interior Ministry against 23 members of the Religious Scholars Association for Mutual Assistance and Solidarity (DIAYDER) accused of having links to extremist groups banned in the country. Nine of the defendants are currently in custody, while others reportedly still work for the municipality of Istanbul. However, many experts and politicians believe that the Turkish authorities are thus preparing the ground for prosecuting Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a representative of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) considered one of the most serious rivals of the current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2023 elections.

In this regard, against the background of the events in Kazakhstan in early January, a number of experts do not rule out that the growing socio-political crisis in Turkey may in the near future lead to an undesirable aggravation of the situation in that country, which will only be answered by tougher measures by the current authorities against the opposition.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.