‘Precious solitude’: Is Turkey trapped in foreign-policy limbo?

The world keeps getting messier, and Turkey’s outer posture is becoming correspondingly blurred. What we witness is simply a calibrated effort to carve retired space against the slow drift toward isolation, alternatively than a settled, coherent strategy.

By the extremity of April, 4 interlocking diplomatic moves crystalized this unsettled choreography, producing a representation that is wide successful outline but fuzzy successful intention.

First, the informal EU leaders’ gathering held successful Cyprus from April 23-24 marked a notable sharpening of the bloc’s defence posture successful the Eastern Mediterranean.

Cyprus, led by President Nikos Christodoulides, pushed for the EU, with the backing of the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, to turn Article 42.7 of the TEU – the communal defence clause, described by the second arsenic “undebatably clear” – into a practical, operational mechanism, utilizing the island’s status arsenic a frontline EU subordinate adjacent to the Middle East.

In parallel, France and Greece accelerated their subject buildup astir the island, including the deployment of frigates, aerial defence systems and maritime surveillance assets, transforming the southern portion of the divided Cyprus into a de facto guardant level for European powerfulness projection.

At the meeting, the EU hosted leaders and representatives from respective Middle Eastern and Gulf states – Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Gulf Cooperation Council – signaling an effort to insulate Cyprus from Turkish unit by weaving it into a broader determination coalition.

Turkey was invited but chose not to attend, citing nonrecognition of the Republic of Cyprus. Israel, too, was near out, though it is considered to beryllium portion of the axis taking shape; Its beingness would surely pb to a refusal by the Arab states to attend.

The essence of the gathering invites further tension. The cumulative effect is to reposition Ankara not arsenic a cardinal information spouse wrong the emerging EU defence architecture, but arsenic a peripheral, problem-causing variable to beryllium managed astir the edges.

Second, the April 17-19 Antalya Diplomacy Forum showcased an alternative, softer look of Turkish overseas policy. Organized under the theme, “Navigating Uncertainty,” the forum gathered mid-tier powers, Global South actors and determination mediators, presenting Turkey arsenic an unfastened hub susceptible of bridging spheres.

However, this representation of Ankara arsenic a cardinal node contrasts with its progressively constrained space successful “formal-institutional” Europe. The forum yielded symbolic superior alternatively than binding leverage. It was alternatively a showcase of connectivity, not a structural remedy for the EU-driven squeeze.

Third, the April 22-23 signing of the Strategic Partnership Framework betwixt Turkey and the United Kingdom added a new, bilateral lever. The agreement, negotiated by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his UK counterpart, Yvette Cooper, covers defence cooperation, NATO-aligned security, vigor infrastructure and Middle Eastern stability, explicitly aiming to deepen London-Ankara ties beyond the EU framework.

Brexit-era Britain, seeking its ain “Global Britain” profile, and Turkey, seeking ways to bypass an progressively antagonistic EU beforehand door, find successful each different a mutually useful, if asymmetric, counterbalance to the Franco-Greek-Cypriot information axis.

Fourth, the European Parliament’s Security and Defense Committee (SEDE) voted connected  April 27 to exclude Turkey from the defence components of the Horizon Europe programme for 2028-2034 by a borderline of 29-5, with 1 abstention.

Though the text remains successful transition done the EU’s legislative process, the governmental awesome leaves small doubt: Europe’s astir ambitious probe and innovation framework, when it formally includes a defence basket, will not assistance Turkey entree connected the aforesaid footing arsenic afloat members.

The move, encouraged by Cypriot MEP Costas Mavrides, reflects a broader temper successful Brussels to treat Ankara arsenic a partially unreliable defence spouse and to bounds technology transfer and associated capableness building.

To these 4 elements, Ankara added a diplomatic coda: Fidan’s April 29-30 visit to Austria, where helium reiterated a cautiously calibrated connection connected EU membership. If the EU issued a wide governmental awesome of willingness to judge Turkey arsenic a “fellow member,” helium said, Ankara would reevaluate its presumption and take factual steps to implicit the accession process.

This was a classical determination to propulsion the shot to Brussels: a reminder that Turkey still wants the doorway open, while implicitly accusing Europe of closing it connected political, not technical, grounds. Domestically, the enactment is work by galore commentators arsenic grounds that rank is not yet a dormant letter, but disapproval of Brussels often overshadows immoderate self-critical reckoning with Turkey’s ain antiauthoritarian backsliding and quality rights record.

On top of this, there is overmuch uncertainty that Ankara’s approach, erstwhile much to beryllium perceived arsenic equine trading based solely connected its “geopolitical weight,” will make a temper of flexibility within the EU.

Underlying overmuch of the alienating dynamic is the progressively confrontational clime successful the Eastern Mediterranean. Ankara’s “Mavi Vatan” (“Blue Homeland”) doctrine, primitively developed by a radical of retired admirals hostile to Greece and aboriginal adopted by the government, has turned the portion into a geopolitical laboratory where overlapping maritime claims and vigor exploration intersect with hard powerfulness demonstration.

This posture, complemented by insistently nationalist rhetoric successful Turkey astir 12 “occupied” Greek islands (the Dodecanese), has reinforced Western fears of revisionism without delivering a stable information equilibrium. Instead, it has contributed to a feedback loop successful which France, Greece and Cyprus deepen their ain defence ties, and Europe grows much cautious astir integrating Ankara successful delicate information projects.

In this context, it could beryllium argued that, arsenic the S-400 contented has go a strategic obstacle to improving Turkish-American relations, so person Ankara’s violative moves successful the Eastern Mediterranean shattered the already delicate crushed of confidence-building.

Yet Turkey is not passive. The UK partnership, the Antalya hub-building and the continued assertion connected the EU accession process magnitude to a layered strategy: debar afloat isolation and exploit pockets of openness within the West and the Global South. But the occupation is that these strands bash not yet adhd up to a coherent doctrine.

In essence, Ankara is trying to widen its country for maneuver done bilateralism and informal diplomacy while the rules-based, organization poles of Europe harden against it.

In the abbreviated term, the astir realistic script is neither a afloat Turkish exit from the European bid nor a sudden rehabilitation of the EU rank process. Instead, Turkey is apt to stay successful a “liminal zone,” or, to propulsion the point, successful diplomatic terms, a “no-man’s-land”: engaged capable economically and strategically astir the edges to matter, yet kept retired of halfway information decision-making and high-end defence integration.

The existent constellation – European defence ambitions, SEDE exclusion, UK balancing and Ankara’s Antalya-style networking – suggests that Turkey’s outer choreography is little astir a new, expansive strategic turn and much astir managing a protracted, ambivalent separation from the EU’s “inner sanctum,” adjacent arsenic it keeps the doorway symbolically ajar from the Turkish side.

Yavuz Baydar is simply a Turkish journalist, Editor-in-Chief of Ahval online quality website.