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The rhetoric over Turkish expansionism far exceeds the country’s capabilities.
By: Hilal Khashan
The quest to
create a greater Turkish state is an old idea. It was first promoted by
the Committee of Union and Progress, which was secretly established in
Istanbul in 1889 and sought to establish a Turkish entity named Turan on
the ruins of the faltering Ottoman Empire. Followers of Turanian
ideology believe the Turan region includes the areas between the Iranian
plateau and the Caspian Sea. Some advocates of Turanian nationalism
claim that the Turkic population includes peoples from western China to
eastern Europe. They view the Turkic population today as the inhabitants
of Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans.
Modern Turkish
leaders have taken up the cause of establishing a greater Turkish state.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP), established by Turkey’s founding
father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, took the lead in championing the project.
Most recently, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan became its lead proponent
after his Justice and Development Party (AKP) seized power in 2002. His
focus has been on reviving pan-Turanism and blending it with
neo-Ottomanism, a concept that Ataturk had discarded.
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Expanding Turkey’s Reach
Turkish leaders
have sought for years to forge alliances with other Muslim-majority
states to expand Turkey’s reach. During his time as prime minister from
1989 to 1993, Turgut Ozal sought to open a new chapter of Turkish
relations with Arab and Muslim countries, following years of strained
ties under the CHP. In 1997, Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan
established the Developing-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation,
whose membership includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Nigeria. When the AKP took power, the foreign minister
launched Turkey’s “zero problems with its neighbors” policy aimed at
minimizing tensions with other Middle Eastern states.
Turkey is also
increasing its soft power in the South Caucasus. Its most important
success has been in Azerbaijan, which benefited from Turkey’s assistance
in the second Nagorno-Karabakh War against Armenia in 2020. In 2017,
Turkey established a military base in Qatar amid reports of plans to
invade the country, and in 2019, it deployed troops to Libya. Its
military intervention broke the siege of Tripoli by the Tobruk-based
Libyan National Army. Turkey recently signed a military cooperation
agreement with Libya’s unity government. And while it repaired its
relationships with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and
expressed a willingness to resolve its differences with Egypt, it
escalated its dispute with Greece and Cyprus over its exclusive economic
zone in the Eastern Mediterranean.
In 2016, Turkish
state media published a new map of the country that expanded its
internationally recognized borders. It incorporated a few Greek islands
in the Aegean Sea, as well as territory in northern Syria, extending
from Aleppo to the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.
Publication of the map coincided with Erdogan’s talk about the need to
amend the 1923 Lausanne Agreement, which established the borders of
modern Turkey. He also criticized Ataturk for abandoning Mosul and
Aleppo.
Ankara has also
long sought to defend Turkish minorities living abroad. It refused to
recognize France’s decision to divide Syria in 1920-21 into five states
and established the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta, subsequently
renamed Hatay, as a subdivision of the state of Aleppo. In 1936, Turkey
submitted a complaint to the League of Nations, claiming that Turkish
residents in Hatay were victims of abuse. One month before Ataturk’s
death in 1938, the French declared the establishment of the provisional
Hatay state, co-administered by France and Turkey in violation of the
terms of the Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence. In 1939, Turkey
annexed the territory after a rigged referendum showed that most
inhabitants favored unity with the Turkish Republic.
Ankara came to
the defense of ethnic Turks in Cyprus after clashes erupted with Greek
Cypriots in 1963. Turkey deployed its air force and threatened to
invade, before U.S. President Lyndon Johnson warned it against doing so.
In 1974, the Cypriot National Guard orchestrated a coup d’etat ordered
by the Greek junta as part of a plan to unify Cyprus with Greece. Taking
advantage of Washington’s preoccupation with the Watergate scandal,
Turkey invaded Cyprus, seizing control of 40 percent of the island. The
northern part of Cyprus later declared independence, establishing the
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983.
Why Syria and Iraq Matter
Last month, an
explosion in Istiklal Street in the heart of Istanbul killed eight
people and injured dozens. Vowing revenge, Erdogan blamed the attack on
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – considered a terrorist group by
Turkey – and its operations based in Kobani, Syria. The strategic border
city was seized in 2014 by the Islamic State but recaptured by the
Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as the
Syrian arm of the PKK, in 2015 with the United States’ help. IS was
responsible for another blast on Istiklal Street in 2016, part a spate
of terror attacks carried out by the group. The predominantly Kurdish
Movement for a Democratic Society, which promotes democratic
self-administration in north and east Syria, took issue with Ankara’s
allegation that the PKK/YPG were responsible for last month’s explosion.
The movement views the accusation as a pretext to justify Turkey’s
Operation Claw-Sword, a large military campaign against Kurdish targets
in Iraq and Syria.
Ankara launched
Operation Claw-Sword, which includes airstrikes and a ground campaign
against Kurdish positions from Aleppo to Erbil, on Nov. 20. Erdogan says
he intends to establish a security belt on the Syrian side of the
border, measuring 30 kilometers deep and more than 900 kilometers long
from the Mediterranean to the Iraqi border. This is the fourth operation
launched by Turkey in Syria since 2016. In every previous campaign,
Turkey seized control of territory in northern Syria – part of Erdogan’s
goal, stated in 2015, to establish a buffer zone along the border. He
argues that this project will protect Turkish national interests and
help resettle 1 million of the 3.5 million Syrian refugees living in
Turkey.
The U.S. and key
European countries don’t support Erdogan’s plan. The YPG and the Women’s
Protection Units, both of which are also classified as terrorist groups
by Ankara, constitute the most significant components of the Syrian
Democratic Forces, with which the U.S. has partnered in its fight
against the Islamic State. Fellow participants in the Astana peace
process, namely Russia and Iran, also oppose any Turkish military
operation in northern Syria.
Erdogan, however,
is trying to take advantage of his country’s rising position as a
mediator in the Ukraine war to seize control over a larger share of
Syria. Ankara reached separate agreements with Washington and Moscow to
remove the SDF from Tal Rifaat and Manbij, two strategic cities located
west of the Euphrates, and from areas along the border. The agreements
would have given Turkey control of the international highway known as
the M4, but the Americans and Russians reneged on the deals. Now,
however, they need Erdogan’s cooperation on Ukraine. Turkey has become a
major link between Washington and Moscow, especially after it
negotiated an agreement with Russia to export Ukrainian grain through
the Black Sea. Erdogan is hoping this will open the door for acceptance
of Operation Claw-Sword.
The plan has two
parts: The claw refers to targeted airstrikes, and the sword to a ground
offensive. Turkey obtained tacit approval from Russia and the U.S. to
launch the first phase of the operation. Erdogan said Turkey would soon
attack Kurdish forces with armor and infantry in response to the bombing
in Istanbul. It’s doubtful, however, that the U.S. will authorize a
ground offensive against the SDF.
Bashar Assad’s
regime handed over control of parts of northern Syria to the YPG. Assad
considered the Kurds allies of his government, which had embraced the
PKK leader and offered him refuge in Damascus for nearly two decades
during a tense period in Turkish-Syrian relations. The Kurds felt
empowered when the civil war broke out, boosting their dream of
establishing a Kurdistan in Syria on the model of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The official
Turkish position is that Kurdish separatists in Iraqi Kurdistan
determine the political orientation of the Syrian Kurds. There are more
than 20 Turkish military bases in northern Iraq, predominately in
Bashiqa near Mosul, the country’s second-largest city after Baghdad.
Turkey is also expanding its post in the Metina region in Duhok
governorate, despite the Iraqi government’s protests, to become the
focal point of its operations against the PKK. Turkey's interior
minister has said that his country will act in Iraq, as it did in Syria,
and control new areas in its northern region.
The Rhetoric Continues
In 2020, Erdogan
said the reopening of the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul reminded the
Turkish people of their strength, symbolizing their resurrection and the
breaking of the shackles on their feet. He promised to continue the
march until Turkey reaches its destination. He also said that by 2023,
when the country celebrates the centenary of its founding, it will be
strong, independent and prosperous.
But his
expectations are unrealistic, given Turkey’s economic crisis, structural
weakness and collapsing currency. Erdogan’s approval ratings are
falling, as the Turkish people struggle to make ends meet and grow
increasingly unimpressed by his adventurism abroad. Though the war in
Ukraine increased Turkey’s significance to NATO, the U.S. can curb
Erdogan’s foreign ambitions if he threatens its other regional allies.
Erdogan’s plans for a greater Turkey are now in doubt. |