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“Turkey has deep bonds of friendship and fraternity with Qatar and relations between the two countries have rapidly improved in all fields … Both countries are actively cooperating to resolve regional problems.”
With these words, the official website of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefly describes the state of relations between Qatar and Turkey. These relations have influenced and will continue to profoundly influence the evolution (or involution) of international relations in a wide region that goes beyond the classical borders of the geopolitical Middle East and extends from Libya to the Caucasus, passing through Cyprus and the Mediterranean basin. Oriental .
“Friends of hard times”: this is how the Turkish president, Tayyp Recep Erdogan, and the emir of Qatar, the unscrupulous 40-year-old Tamin bin Hamad al-Thani define themselves.
Indeed, they must be good friends, given that in 2018 the Turkish president accepted, without batting an eye, the “personal” gift of a private jet worth $ 400 million generously provided by his young and very rich ally, with whom has had very close relationships over the past decade, with face-to-face meetings on a monthly if not weekly basis.
The connection between Turkey and Qatar has two very specific reference dates: December 2010 and June 2017.
After the first and limited unrest that broke out in Tunisia on the wave of protests against the increase in the cost of living and for greater democracy, also thanks to the sophisticated and incessant information (and disinformation) strategy of the Al Jazeera television station, owned of the Emir of Qatar, the protests quickly spread to Libya, Egypt and Syria, producing upheavals and upheavals that persist today.
The myth of the “Arab Spring” was born thanks to Al Jazeera, and the political myopia and analytical superficiality of the US State Department, led at the time by the “vestal” of the politically correct, Hillary Clinton.
WasAl Jazeera which inflamed the squares, streets and minds of the entire Arab and Muslim world, calling for rebellion against “despots” and instilling in the West and in the Euro-American mainstream media the idea that there was a genuine call for democracy.
We realized (with difficulty) that things were not going as the Qatari broadcaster reported, after a decade of bloody clashes, civil wars and authoritarian coups – all events that proved that the “Arab Spring” was nothing more than the attempt of the most backward part of Islam, gathered around the “Muslim Brotherhood”, to finally take power by overthrowing more or less authoritarian secular regimes, and to replace them with governments based exclusively on Sharia, the Islamic law that requires the strictest observance of the precepts of the Koran.
It was in that context that the special bond between Erdogan and al-Thani developed and strengthened. Both realized that if they managed to take the political leadership of the “Muslim Brotherhood” – which did not appeal to the more moderate Arab governments in the Persian Gulf – they could become the new key players in Middle Eastern geopolitics.
That prospect has led Turkey and Qatar to support the short-lived rise of the “Muslim Brother”, Mohammed al-Morsi, to the Egyptian presidency in 2012 and to intervene heavily in the Syrian crisis, with economic and military aid, as well as propaganda support. (always with Al Jazeera at work) against the rebel forces opposing the Assad regime which were quickly hegemonized and dominated by Syrian jihadist militiamen of Jabat Al Nusra and the Iraqi cutthroats of the Isis of the “caliph” Al Baghdadi.
Turkey and Qatar have bet on the fall of Assad and on the transformation of Syria into an Islamic Republic that could support the new hegemonic role of Turkey in the region, financially supported by the very rich Qatar, a state that with its 300,000 inhabitants has failed to stand out in front of the hegemonic country of the Gulf, or Saudi Arabia.
Things did not go as the two “friends of hard times” wanted. In Egypt the dreams of Morsi and the “Muslim Brotherhood” shattered in 2013, in the face of the reaction of the military led by General al-Sisi, while in Syria – thanks to the intervention of Russia – Assad still “reigned” even if alone on the ruins of a country destroyed by a senseless and ferocious civil war that has caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and the flight of over a million refugees.
The role played by Turkey and Qatar in the Middle Eastern turmoil and the ambitions of the two allies to take leadership and excel in the most sensitive region of the world, lead us to the second significant date in relations between Erdogan and al-Thani, which is June 5, 2017. It was the day that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar. A few days later they gave a very harsh ultimatum to Qatar, requiring it to minimize relations with the “Muslim Brotherhood” and close the military base of Tariq Bin Ziyad, occupied since 2014 by a contingent of Turkish armed forces. Otherwise very harsh penalties would be imposed.
In order to strengthen the pressure, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have sent troops to the border with Qatar, have stopped flights and land communications while, by decision of the Turkish Parliament, the Turkish contingent has been further strengthened.
The sanctions against Qatar were very harsh and only a Turkish airlift could avert a serious food crisis for a wealthy but powerless people, facing the siege of their neighbors.
The support provided by Erdogan to Qatar, during what has been called the “Gulf crisis”, has negatively and definitively marked the relations between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf, with strong repercussions on trade (it was called for a general boycott of Turkish goods) and on the Turkish economy in general, which has been negatively affected by the decline in exports across the region.
The unscrupulous activism of the Turkish leader, the profligate spending to support the airlift to Qatar and the military engagement in Syria have put Ankara’s economy in crisis long before the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was made feel in Turkey, with devastating effects on its people’s standard of living.
However, a boycott from the Gulf countries, threats of sanctions from Europe and a substantial international isolation have not yet limited the adventurism of the Turkish president who, as an avid gamer, is raising the stakes on several tables in hopes of remedying. to his losses.
From Libya to Armenia, from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, the Turkish leader continues to try to play a leading role, with the support of his friends in Doha.
He sent his to Libya Jabat Al Nusra Syrian soldiers and militiamen fighting alongside forces loyal to President al-Sarraj, thus forcing his opponent, General Haftar, to stop last spring-summer offensive on Tripoli.
In Libya, Turkish interference provoked a harsh reaction from the Egyptian president, al-Sisi, who warned Turks and loyalists not to cross the “red line” west of Sirte, threatening to send ground troops.
In the Mediterranean the crisis is open and far from being a solution.
Turkey’s projects on the exclusive economic zones off the Turkish part of Cyprus and the islands of the Eastern Aegean for the exploration and exploitation of underwater gas are strongly and formally contested by Greece and France, while Al Sisi’s Egypt has even involved Israel in exploration projects off the coast of Egypt. it costs.
In the debate on the borders of the gas exploration and extraction areas in the southern and eastern Mediterranean basin, there is no clear position and commitment on the part of Italy, despite the active presence of ENI in the area, which was left alone in the difficult situation Libyan and Mediterranean.
While the dossier on the independence of the Syrian Kurds – strongly opposed by Turkey but supported by the United States – is still open, the only partial strategic success achieved by President Erdogan’s activism was in Nagorno-Karabakh where, with Turkish military support , Azerbaijan The Muslims defeated the Armenians on the ground, thus forcing them to surrender portions of land inhabited by Christians.
However, the Azerbaijani-Turkish success was not complete, as troops from the Russian Federation were deployed on the ground, with the consent of the belligerents, to ensure a truce. Hence a Pyrrhic victory, which still allows Vladimir Putin to control the disputed territory and continue to protect the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh not only with diplomacy but also with his armed forces.
With Israel in the background, politically strengthened by the opening of diplomatic relations with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, forged under the benevolent eye of Saudi Arabia, the power relations from the Black Sea to Libya take shape and see the two “friends hard times ”Becoming more and more aggressive but probably also weaker.
Turkey imports 60% of its gas from Russia through Azerbaijan and, until it can exploit the fields being explored on the Turkish banks of the Black Sea, it will not be able to push too hard with Russia, which so far has not responded to the Turkish provocations harshly, but it certainly demonstrated with a foreign minister like Sergey Lavrov that he closes his eyes or bows his head in front of a new Islamist crescent.
With America distracted by the paradoxical outcome of the presidential elections and Europe prostrated by the health, economic and social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is no surprise that international political adventurers like Erdogan and al-Thany – who have not hesitated to support the worst representatives of Islamic extremism in the Middle East, North Africa, the Caucasus and even in Europe – and the Qatar-Turkey axis has so far largely resisted despite the numerous debacles of their allies, due to the common front erected by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries.
What is surprising is that these countries have in any case been left alone, with the exception of Russia, France, Egypt and Israel, to face an Islamist axis that would expect to continue to act undisturbed on the southern borders of Europe and Italy.
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