Tectonic shifts in global geopolitical and geoeconomics designs over the past few years have forced Türkiye (Turkey officially changed its name to Türkiye in June 2022) to re-posture and re-position its strategic outlook and aims, both regionally and as an aspirational international power under the vision of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Today, as Ankara faces historically high inflation, touching 80 percent, and a stubborn economic crisis, Türkiye has had to backtrack on aspirations and adopt more pragmaticism, whilst still trying to maintain a brand of politics that has won itself more foes than friends. During this period, India–Türkiye ties have also been in the deep freeze. “Turkish Airlines from Delhi has one flight, and it leaves at around 6 AM. Compare that to the UAE’s Emirates which has around 200 flights from India per week, and you will see how these geopolitical dynamics are working,” a Gulf diplomat once said to this author.

Türkiye’s regional vision in West Asia had also changed where it increasingly saw itself as a powerful and worthy actor to challenge the power constructs of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and more directly against Riyadh as a viable alternative to represent the Sunni Islam school of thought.

Ankara adopted a hard-handed domestic posture after an attempted coup against Erdogan in 2016, giving the President unprecedented powers and clamping down on opposition and dissent. During this period, Türkiye’s regional vision in West Asia had also changed where it increasingly saw itself as a powerful and worthy actor to challenge the power constructs of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and more directly against Riyadh as a viable alternative to represent the Sunni Islam school of thought. Moves such as declaring Istanbul’s famous sixth-century Hagia Sophia as a mosque in 2020 were seen from the lens of what many termed as Erdogan’s ‘neo-Ottoman’ construct. However, it has been hardened geopolitics that has been Erdogan’s calling card in the recent past. Türkiye’s actions in the Gulf and regions such as northern Africa have more than often placed it  in direct confrontation against its regional rivals. One of the most widely covered examples was in Libya, where the UAE had backed Libyan National Army’s (LNA) Libyan-American leader Khalifa Haftar whilst Ankara had put its political and military weight behind the UN-backed political process. In the end, this division was less about Libya and its people, but more about Ankara’s will to challenge what it saw as Abu Dhabi and its then Crown Prince and now President Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan’s rapidly increasing influence in the Islamic world. 2022 is a changed time frame; it is in contrast to the past few years when Türkiye tried to help build a challenge to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) with Qatar, Pakistan, Iran, and Malaysia in an attempt to break Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s ideological supremacy within the Islamic world. This grouping, however, failed to materialise beyond one summit, as Pakistan was dragooned by the Saudis to pull out. Islamabad, under then Prime Minister Imran Khan, along with Malaysia and Türkiye was one of the architects, and Ankara and Islamabad’s common voice over Kashmir became a significant point of deference with the OIC that not only refused to directly get involved in the issue, but also invited India’s then foreign minister, the late Sushma Swaraj, as a guest of honour to deliver a speech in Abu Dhabi. Whilst OIC’s resolutions over Kashmir have been an irritant for Indian diplomacy over the years, greater cooperation and collaboration between India and the Gulf have reduced such comments from the OIC as largely symbolic and bureaucratic in nature.

Erdogan visited the UAE to bring relations back on track after diversions over Libya and the economic blockade against Qatar orchestrated by the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Today, Türkiye is on a completely different geopolitical track. Its economic problems forced Ankara to make good with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, hoping to attract their investments to infuse a much-needed boost into the Turkish economy. In February, Erdogan visited the UAE to bring relations back on track after diversions over Libya and the economic blockade against Qatar orchestrated by the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In June, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman travelled to Türkiye to normalise ties. To prod the process along, Türkish courts agreed to transfer the case relating to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to Riyadh, removing a significant obstacle between the two states. Interestingly, what initially started as a Turkish view of seeing itself as a challenge to Saudi’s supremacy within the construct of Sunni Islam, is also seen by Riyadh as Türkiye’s potential position as a major Sunni Islam country to help counter-balance Iran, a country which was part of what was the counter-OIC mechanism that Ankara itself helped build. Erdogan is slated to visit Iran later this month. Towards the West, Türkiye’s relations by association, started to improve, albeit at a much slower pace. The Russian war on Ukraine placed Ankara on the active front of the Black Sea. Working towards improved ties with Washington D.C. and its NATO allies for some time now, Türkiye leveraged its position to work with the West on comparatively small concessions in exchange for not blocking Finland and Sweden’s bid to join NATO in light of Moscow’s war against Kiev. A photo-op with President Joe Biden and certain guarantees over Helsinki and Stockholm’s positions regarding support for certain Kurdish groups and interests placed Erdogan back once again within distance to gainfully rub elbows with Western powers. This return of space in Washington D.C. at a time when the most powerful Gulf state for American interests is neither Abu Dhabi nor Riyadh, but Doha, an ally of Türkiye and one that is hosting ‘indirect talks’ between Iran and the US, gives Erdogan more room to rebuild Türkiye’s lost access.

A photo-op with President Joe Biden and certain guarantees over Helsinki and Stockholm’s positions regarding support for certain Kurdish groups and interests placed Erdogan back once again within distance to gainfully rub elbows with Western powers.

Repairing frayed ties?

All these intricacies at play raise a valuable question; is this a good time for New Delhi and Ankara to try and repair the bilateral relationship? Türkiye’s stance on Kashmir and Erdogan raising the issue at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) remains the biggest stumbling block for the two countries. However, it is also important to note that the division based on Ankara’s vocal stance on Kashmir is able to play out as few geostrategic issues overlap between the immediate interests of both states. To colour this argument further, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has often raised the issue of Kashmir on social media and in speeches alike. Nonetheless, New Delhi’s relations with Tehran remain robust, with Foreign Minister Dr S Jaishankar attending in person the swearing-in of Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi in August 2021, and both countries working together on regional concerns such as the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and economic designs such as connectivity between South and Central Asia. India’s close relations with the UAE and Saudi Arabia alike, despite some recent setbacks, can help in reviewing bilateral relations between Türkiye and India despite the severity of certain outstanding issues. Using mechanisms such as the I2U2 grouping between India, the UAE, Israel, and the US, aimed toward regional economic dialogues as a springboard could provide new ideations and opportunities for dialogue with Ankara relating to trade and other economic opportunities via the Gulf, offering potentially small steps to test ground and intent prior to having more consequential dialogues addressing the more fundamental challenges that persist.

• International Affairs
• India
• West Asia
• Diplomat
• economic crisis
• Gulf
• Military
• NATO
• Political
• Turkiye
• UNGA

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