Turkish Overseas Minister Hakan Fidan attends the BRICS+ session of the two-day BRICS Overseas Ministers Summit held in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia on June 11, 2024.
Sefa Karachan | Anatolia | Getty Photographs
Turkey’s bid to hitch the BRICS alliance is a transfer seen as each strategic and symbolic because the Eurasian nation of 85 million makes ever better strides in its affect and leverage on the worldwide stage.
“Our president has already expressed a number of instances that we want to turn out to be a BRICS member,” a spokesman for Turkey’s main AKP get together informed reporters earlier in September. “Our demand on this matter is obvious and the method is going down inside this framework.
BRICS, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is a gaggle of rising market nations looking for to deepen financial ties. This 12 months it gained 4 new members: Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the UAE.
Additionally it is seen as a counterweight to Western-led organizations such because the EU, the G7 and even NATO, though it lacks a proper construction, enforcement mechanisms and uniform guidelines and requirements.
For Turkey, a long-time Western ally and NATO member since 1952, the transfer to hitch BRICS is “in keeping with its broader geopolitical journey: positioning itself as an impartial actor in a multipolar world and even changing into a pole of energy in its personal precisely,” George Dyson, senior analyst at Management Dangers, informed CNBC.
“This doesn’t imply that Turkey is popping away from the West totally,” Dyson added, “however Turkey desires to foster as many commerce ties as attainable and pursue alternatives unilaterally with out being constrained by the Western association. It’s positively symbolic that Turkey is demonstrating simply that – that it’s not constrained by its good relations with the West.”
Diversifying alliances
Regardless of many years of accession to Europe and the US, Turkey has confronted successive rejections of its accession to the EU, a long-standing sore spot for Ankara.
Ambassador Matthew Bryza, a former White Home official and senior State Division official presently primarily based in Istanbul, stated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his authorities “appear to be motivated primarily by two elements: a strategic custom of securing of nationwide pursuits … and a need to scare the West a bit, each out of emotional malice and as a negotiating tactic to extract concessions.”
CNBC has reached out to the Turkish presidency’s workplace for remark.
Turkey in the previous couple of years expand its role in global diplomacy, brokering prisoner swap offers and conducting different negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, for instance, whereas mending beforehand strained relations with regional powers corresponding to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and, extra just lately, Egypt.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes palms with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan throughout their joint press convention on September 4, 2023 in Sochi, Russia.
Information from Getty Photographs | Getty Photographs
Ankara additionally refuses to take part in sanctions towards Russia, a place that irritates its Western allies however helps it keep an impartial place as the so-called “average power”, which he considers helpful for his relations with China and the International South.
To that finish, “any new BRICS member is clearly desirous to make the most of the stronger ‘togetherness’ of rising economies to cut back dependence on superior economies, primarily the USA,” stated Arda Tunja, an impartial economist and guide primarily based in Turkey.
Oppose the West?
Nevertheless, Tunca famous that Turkey’s distinctive place on the planet is a “delicate difficulty to debate” because the nation has “critical political issues with the EU and the USA” regardless of its Western alliances.
Turkey’s ruling get together, which has dominated the nation for 22 years, is “ideologically nearer to the East than the West,” Tunca stated. “Turkey wished to get on the BRICS prepare earlier than it was too late. It’s too early to say that BRICS can turn out to be an alternative choice to the West, however the intention is clearly to confront the West below the management of China.”
Importantly, as a part of BRICS it permits its members to commerce in currencies aside from {dollars}. This goals to cut back dependence on the US-led system and usher in a extra multi-polar world. The truth that it’s being led by China makes some within the West cautious, who see it as a possible victory for Beijing.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (not seen) is welcomed by Chinese language President Xi Jinping as a part of the eleventh G20 Leaders’ Summit in Hangzhou, China, on September 3, 2016.
Mehmet Ali Yozcan | Anatolian Company | Getty Photographs
“I do not suppose there may be their efficiency [BRICS’] options, it is extra of a geopolitical factor, form of a symbolic standoff with the G7,” Dyson stated. He additionally famous, “It is attention-grabbing that Iran and the UAE are each in it. It is a bit just like the anti-Western staff.”
Erdogan has talked about his need to hitch BRICS since no less than 2018, however the matter was by no means formalized. In June, Turkish Overseas Minister Hakan Fidan visited each China and Russia, the latter for a BRICS+ summit, throughout which Russian President Vladimir Putin stated he “welcomed” Turkey’s curiosity in becoming a member of the bloc.
On the time, the then US ambassador to Turkey, Jeff Flake, stated in an interview that he hoped Turkey would not join the group, however added that he didn’t suppose it will negatively have an effect on Turkey’s alignment with the West.
