Europe ignores ‘bully’ Erdoğan at its peril

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s aggression is posing a growing threat to stability in the eastern Mediterranean, yet nobody is prepared to act, an opinion writer for the Guardian said on Sunday.

“Driven by a faith-fuelled nationalism, Erdoğan has doubled down in his role of neighbourhood bully,” Simon Tisdall wrote.

Tisdall said that most European countries seem reluctant to denounce Turkey’s increasingly aggressive actions in the region; which include expanding oil and gas exploration operations in Greek territorial waters, opening its borders with the European Union to refugees earlier this year, and military interventions in Syria, northern Iraq, and Libya.

He said that “Europe’s Erdoğan problem has grown steadily worse since he survived a coup plot in 2016. Indiscriminate repression at home, involving the jailing of tens of thousands of real and imagined opponents, has been matched by destabilising, Ottoman-revival adventurism abroad”.

Tisdall said that - as a NATO member, key EU trade partner, border gatekeeper, and influential actor in the region - Turkey has real strategic importance. “Perhaps that explains the awkward silence of many governments, including the UK’s. It does not excuse it,” he said.

At least French President Emmanuel Macron is an exception to the European rule in his approach to Turkey, Tisdall said.

Macron was furious in June when Turkish warships, escorting a vessel suspected of smuggling arms to Libya, allegedly harassed a lone French frigate - obliging the latter to withdraw. "This was not the behaviour of a supposed ally," Tisdall said.

Further enraged by Turkey’s expanding hydrocarbon exploration activities in the region, Macron sent naval reinforcements to the eastern Mediterranean last week and told Erdoğan to back off.

Both Greece and Turkey have mobilised their navies and air forces. Turkey claims current international law governing continental shelf energy deposits is unjust. Greece says Turkey's actions are illegal. Both say they prefer dialogue to military confrontation, but on Thursday, as Ankara vowed to defend its “rights and interests” and Athens warned of the growing danger of a military “accident”, two Greek and Turkish ships were involved in a minor collision.

Tisdall said rising tensions between Greece and Turkey suggests a deliberate calculation by Turkey’s president. Tisdall cited Yavuz Baydar, Ahval’s editor-in-chief, as saying that an insecure Erdoğan - beset by economic, pandemic and currency crises - wants to shore up his reputation as a strongman upholding Turkey’s honour.

“He needs to reproduce his swashbuckling image every day,” Tisdall cited Baydar as saying.

Tisdall said that European leaders must realise their "Erdoğan problem" cannot be ignored, dodged, or downplayed indefinitely.

“Turkey turning rogue is a very real, immediate and dangerous prospect,” he said. “Nobody seems to have an Erdoğan containment plan. One is increasingly required.”