Biden was right, Erdoğan needs to be reined in urgently

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s stern rebuke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is timely as it coincides with the latter’s increasingly bullyish movies in the eastern Mediterranean and autocratic rule over the country, UAE -based Gulf News said on Monday.

The resurfaced video of Biden from a December interview with the New York Times calling Erdoğan an autocrat and advocating that Washington “embolden” his opponents to defeat him at the ballot box set off a furore in Turkey over the weekend.

The Gulf News could not agree more with Biden, it said in an editorial, pointing to Erdoğan’s determination in “ignoring the rule of international law, the European Union and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation when it comes to its illegal oil and gas exploration efforts off the coast of Cyprus.”

Greece and Turkey have long disagreed on overlapping claims on hydrocarbon resources in the region, with both sides holding conflicting views of how far their continental shelves extend in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas.

Turkey last week dispatched a research ship conducting seismic surveys in disputed waters, stirring a row with Greece, which put is military and naval forces on alert. France has moved naval assets into the area while the EU has called for an immediate halt to Turkey’s activities.

The latest of Ankara’s conflicts displays Erdoğan’s “inordinate arrogance and ignorance of historical and economic boundaries,” it said.

This crisis in the region has now gone beyond being spat between neighbours in a quiet backwater of the Mediterranean, Gulf News said, pointing to Turkey’s responsibility as a long time NATO member to abide by the rule of law and diplomatic channels.

The latest tension in the eastern Mediterranean is the latest in a string of moves by Ankara that have long irritated European leadership and raised eyebrows in Washington, Gulf News said.