{"id":3023,"date":"2024-09-24T19:24:56","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T19:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/?p=3023"},"modified":"2024-10-04T16:26:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T16:26:31","slug":"a-turkish-brick-in-the-brics-bloc-is-turkey-choosing-between-east-and-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/2024\/09\/24\/a-turkish-brick-in-the-brics-bloc-is-turkey-choosing-between-east-and-west\/","title":{"rendered":"A Turkish brick in the BRICS bloc\u2014is Turkey choosing between East and West?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/a>
24\/09\/2024
By William Gourlay<\/a>
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Recent reports<\/a> suggest that Turkey is positioning itself to join BRICS<\/a>, the political-economic bloc founded by Brazil, Russia, India and China in the mid-2000s. Speculation that Turkey has made a formal application to join comes several months after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan\u2019s attendance at a BRICS summit in Russia<\/a>. When Fidan met Vladamir Putin, the Russian president is said to have applauded Turkey\u2019s increasing engagement<\/a> with the bloc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accepting Turkey\u2014a state with 85 million citizens and the world\u2019s 19th largest<\/a> economy\u2014would add geopolitical heft to BRICS, which is actively looking to expand its membership<\/a> and is often viewed as a counterweight to the Western-led G7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These developments come at a time when Turkey\u2019s strategic allegiances appear to be wavering. US-Turkey relations were recently at rock-bottom<\/a>, and in the last year Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to \u2018part ways<\/a>\u2019 with the EU and announced aspirations to permanent membership<\/a> of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some observers warn<\/a>\u2014somewhat extravagantly\u2014that Turkey placing all its geopolitical eggs in the BRICS basket would be a step towards the collapse of the US-led world order. It has been a long-standing pastime for pundits to fret about Turkey\u2019s strategic direction: in 2009, when Erdogan was deemed to have taken Iran\u2019s side during nuclear negotiations, the first round of melodramatic \u2018who lost Turkey<\/a>?\u2019 articles appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to this, Turkey\u2019s westward inclinations were generally taken for granted. The Republic of Turkey\u2019s founding president, Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk, built a secular order and worked to establish what he saw as Turkey\u2019s rightful place within Europe and the West. This came to fruition when, in 1952, Ankara accepted an offer to join NATO<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half a century later, the Turkish foreign ministry sought closer relations with its Muslim neighbours at the direction of Erdogan, who has always asserted his Islamic identity, leading some to fear that Turkey\u2019s secular politics might be quashed and its foreign policy derailed by Islamist sensibilities.<\/a> Such fears proved largely overblown. Then-foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu\u2019s zero-problems-with-neighbours<\/a> approach was as much guided by pragmatism as by ideology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is similar pragmatism in Ankara\u2019s recent overtures to BRICS. As its economy developed in the first two decades of the 21st century, Turkey grew more confident on the international stage. It now has fewer qualms about pursuing a foreign policy that does not toe the line of its Western partners. Meanwhile, Ankara has grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress on its EU membership. Accession talks began in 2005 but have been moribund for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

European misgivings about admitting Turkey to the EU are not without foundation. A European Parliament report<\/a> on Turkey published in 2023 set out a laundry list of concerns, including restrictions placed upon media, the opposition and the Kurdish population; deteriorating rights for women; a lack of judicial independence; and Ankara\u2019s refusal to comply with European Court of Human Rights ruling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BRICS offers Turkey a political-economic alternative to the EU, one that may prove more immediately welcoming. It can be assumed that Turkey\u2019s accession to BRICS would face less stringent conditions. BRICS is neither a \u2018Christian club\u2019\u2014an accusation Erdogan once levelled at the EU\u2014nor is it likely to have quibbles over the human rights and rule of law violations in Turkey that are red flags for EU bureaucrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkey\u2019s warming relationship with China is also significant. Turkey\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlights<\/a> that trade with China has grown rapidly, such that the superpower is now its second biggest trade partner, with Ankara hoping to expand agricultural exports<\/a> to Beijing. Turkey is also part of China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative, connecting it with several of its brethren Turkic Central Asian states, which are also members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Accordingly, seeking membership of BRICS and\/or the Organisation makes sense to Turkish policymakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Turkish scholar has pointed out that, as the global centre of geopolitical gravity shifts from the western hemisphere to the Indo-Pacific, Turkey may well be losing strategic leverage: its oft-touted status as a bridge between East and West<\/a>. Here, again, joining BRICS will afford Ankara benefits, enmeshing it in an emerging bloc that straddles regions and connects burgeoning economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Turkey\u2019s accession to BRICS is not a given\u2014all current members must approve its application. But even if it does join, this should not be regarded as a repudiation of the West. Erdogan recently remarked<\/a> that Turkey will not be forced into choosing between Europe or the SCO, but could maintain relations and cooperate with both. A parallel may be drawn here with India, which is a founding member of BRICS and a full member of the SCO, but also a member of the Quad with the US, Japan and Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, Western policymakers should not view Turkey\u2019s geopolitical leanings as a zero-sum game. Jarring as it may be to some observers, a Turkey ensconced in BRICS has the opportunity to reprise its role as a bridge\u2014not between continents but between geopolitical blocs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source24\/09\/2024By William Gourlay Recent reports suggest that Turkey is positioning itself to join BRICS, the political-economic bloc founded by Brazil, Russia, India and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia"],"views":565,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3023"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3071,"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions\/3071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopolitic.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}