stands. Diplomatic efforts to contain the crisis in Ukraine lead to unexpected developments: France and Turkey, both on the front lines fighting for a ceasefire, announced a joint humanitarian initiative with Greece in Mariupol on March 25 [sud-est de l’Ukraine]After years of diplomatic tensions peaked in June 2020, when France and Turkey came very close to a military incident off the coast of Libya, it was an unexpected triangle. A year later, the signing of a strategic partnership between France and Greece has not helped, and the French still harbor the illusion that Turkey is in trouble, with all its neighbors, at odds with NATO, and constrained by the European Union. and under pressure from Russia.
However, the diagnosis of weak Turkish diplomacy no longer corresponds to reality. Of course, the regime is going through internal difficulties: the economy is in bad shape and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces a complicated election deadline in 2023. The erosion of power is evident after two decades of political foreclosure, and the opposition is organizing to offer an alternative to the Islamists and far-right coalition that has surrounded Turkey with vindictive nationalism. One thing is for sure: Erdogan will not easily relinquish power on the centenary of the Turkish Republic.
From a foreign policy point of view, there are two possible paths to preparing for this deadline: going to extremes in order to consolidate the foundations of nationalism; or, more unexpectedly but now credibly, Turkey’s mature hypothesis assumes that in the twentieth century The power dividend of patient rebuilding during the year.
peacemaker
A spectacular diplomatic revival that has been successful since 2021 has made Turkey more of a peacemaker than a warmonger than just in the context of Ukraine.If Erdogan has isolated himself in a form of paranoid expansionism since 2016, a year marked by an attempted coup, we are witnessing the return of the fundamentals of former foreign minister Ahmed Davutoglu [2009-2014] the artisan soft power Turkey: A geopolitical center and at peace with its neighbors. The estrangement with the regional anti-Muslim Brotherhood axis sparked by the “Arab Spring” of 2011 has been practically documented: relations with the United Arab Emirates, long sour, are now in good shape, while relations with Saudi Arabia are heating up.
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