If, today, you were to step into the street in any country and ask which world leader’s promises carry the least weight, the answer you would overwhelmingly elicit in every country without exception would be US President Donald Trump.
However, Erdoğan and his government and AKP spokespersons who deem Erdoğan’s every pronouncement to be an order think the precise opposite. This is not new, either. Ever since Trump was elected, for Erdoğan and the team close to him, Trump has been the world’s most trustworthy leader whose words are prized the most and who can even be called a “friend of the Turks!”. So much so that last year, even in the days when he was Tweeting about destroying Turkey and the dollar shot through seven lira, Erdoğan and his team said that Trump was being misled!
Indeed, with tension flaring up between Turkey and the US over the purchase of the S-400s and sanctions against Turkey being mooted, Erdoğan and his government were all ears to Trump’s every pronouncement. Even when the US President spoke of not giving F-35s to Turkey or stated they were working on how sanctions would be implemented, government spokespersons continued to hope that Trump was being misled but would take the straight and narrow path and pass a decision in Turkey’s favour. Nowadays, regarding the “secure zone,” those in charge of Turkey continue to draw succour from Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks, hoping to bring the US close to Turkey’s thesis on the “secure zone.”
There is another leader Erdoğan and his team trust as much as Trump: Russian Head of State Putin!
Were we today to conduct a poll as to which world leader’s promises carry the least weight or who the world’s least trustworthy leader is, Trump would come out number one, while Putin would be second, because the leader of second biggest imperialist power in the redistribution of the world today is Putin.
But Putin’s methods are different.
In the end, Putin is a KGB-trained agent. With the training he received also turning his personal characteristics into an advantage, he learnt things in his training as an agent that have proved to be a boon for him in “diplomacy” and “public relations.”
As for Erdoğan, he has been meeting with Putin at least five or six times a year. In fact, whenever there is a hot development in Syria, he first grabs for the phone and, this not sufficing, leaps on a plane bound for Moscow. We saw the most recent example of this when Turkey’s observation points got caught up in the conflict in the operation the Syria army mounted in Idlib against terrorist formations.
Russia comes into strategic confrontation with Turkey in Syria. This is also where Russia stands on one of Turkey’s red lines of non-recognition of the Assad regime. But, on the other hand, the same Russia does not withhold support from Turkey in tactical matters. It does not miss any chance to hamper rapprochement between the US and Turkey, or indeed cause provocation. Thus, Russia gives Turkey full support in the Afrin operation while capable of placing Turkey at the head of jihadist groups in Idlib as guardian. Nor does it refrain from military initiatives with Syrian and Iranian forces that target Turkey. At the very least, it stands behind Syria’s initiatives.
We have seen this more clearly in recent days.
With Putin on the one hand saying, given the US did not give you Patriots, get yourself S-400s, he does not refrain from offering the most modern of warplanes like the SU-35 and SU-57 to counter the F-35 embargo. He is giving Turkey a blank cheque for all kinds of war equipment!
It has reached the point at which the Moscow visit by Erdoğan, off to ask for support from Putin relating to developments in Idlib, turned into a “arms sale show.” In fact, this “show” banter has been brought to a stage at which the likes of, “If you buy this helicopter, the 1.6 million lira limousine that you obviously like so much is free” may not be out of place!
In short, there is an ongoing struggle between two large imperialist forces that have come face to face in the Syrian theatre over the redistribution of the Middle East. With Turkey saying that it should also be at the redistribution table in this struggle, it is calculating on benefitting from the struggle between these two big powers. And it aims to do this by going arm in arm with the two countries’ leaders, Russian leader Putin and US leader Trump, through “creating sincere friendships.”
In the process, Erdoğan’s “friendship” with Putin and Trump is being taken as far as an abject “limitless trust” in the two imperialist leaders that goes beyond the bounds of diplomacy.
For its part, AKP propaganda and the pool media tout this as being examples of Erdoğan’s “miraculous diplomatic victory,” “walking arm in arm with the top leaders” and “anti-imperialist struggle.”
This for sure makes a mockery of all historic truths and, not just history, but also of human intelligence.
For, going arm in arm with the leaders of the two largest imperialist countries that have by now made open declaration of their mutual enmity and have become embroiled in the struggle to redistribute the world is incomprehensible in terms of all kinds of calculation and plan, let alone anti-imperialist struggle.
Not even Abdulhamid, with his anxiety to reach agreement with the imperialists to extend the life of the Ottoman Empire, fell into such a state.
Because anti-imperialism of this nature cannot even be accounted for as heedlessness and debasement!
Developments in Idlib and debate over the “secure zone” east of the Euphrates have begun to give clear indication of how far and where the journey will lead arm in arm with these two leaders!
(Translated by Tim DRAYTON)
İhsan Çaralan
Bülent Falakaoğlu
Hakkı Özdal
