Meeting all dangers. On June 24 and 25, the 32 members of NATO will meet in The Hague for a summit which promises to be perilous. At this stage, no one knows if Donald Trump will attend, nor what his intentions will be: staying in the Atlantic alliance, emptying it with its substance, leaving it … So many existential questions that plunge Europeans into an abyss of reflection.
What will they do if the American ally abandons them in the open countryside? During a lunch with European leaders, last February, Mark Rutte, the new NATO secretary general, provided an element of response, according to the British press: Westerners must, he said, cooperate more with Turkey, a member, like them, of NATO.
The former Dutch Prime Minister is not the only one to say. “Turkey, which has the second army of the Alliance and has the experience of fire by its commitments in Iraq and Syria [contre la guérilla kurde du PKK] is an essential player, “said the Turkish academic Erhan Kelesoglu.” It is impossible to think of a defense of the European continent which is limited to the members of the EU, without including the United Kingdom and Turkey, “adds Sinan Ulgen, former Turkish diplomat and member of the Think Tank Carnegie Europe. From London and Paris. He was represented by his influential Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hakan Fidan, former head of the Turkish secret service, that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nurses “my box of secrets” and which could, one day, succeed “Reis”. Declared, on March 24, the Turkish Islamo-nationalist president, after a meeting of his cabinet.
Military industrial capacities
With its military power, Turkey has an important place in NATO. And she knows how to use her influence, for example, last March, when she opposed Israel’s participation in military exercises that will take place in Bulgaria next September.
Faced with European concerns, Ankara intends to position herself as a key player in the future defense architecture of the continent. Cooperation that could go far – including in industrial projects. The international embargoes decreed against Turkey for its invasion, in 1974, from the north of the Cypriot Island (where Turkish troops are still present) and Kurdish areas of Syria have pushed it to develop its own military industrial capacities. His great success? The development of combat drones, produced by the Baykar company, owned by Selçuk Bayraktar, son of the president, also considered as a potential dolphin. In December, Baykar acquired, for a sum which was not revealed, the Italian aeronautical manufacturer Piaggio Aerospace. He has also just announced a partnership with the second Italian industrial group, Leonardo, specialized in particular in armaments. “Ankara has also established significant industrial cooperation with Spain, which relates to warships and a prototype of combat aircraft, Hürjet,” said Erhan Kelesoglu.
Tented relationships with Paris
If Turkey has good relations with many member states, its relations are however very tense with Cyprus, of which it occupies part of the territory, and Greece, with episodic tensions on water control in the eastern Mediterranean. The relations with Paris, which is at the heart of the European defense project, have also been complicated in recent years due to the French support for the Syrian Kurdish forces, affiliated with the PKK, which have defeated the Islamic State, but against which Turkey deploys armies of Syrian mercenaries. Last January, Hakan Fidan qualified France and other states of “small countries lagging behind the Americans”. “We don’t take them seriously […]. We will see if they are able to carry out operations alone if the Americans leave the field, “he had managed. But the agreement signed on March 10 between the Kurds and the new Islamist power of Damascus (supported by Ankara) with the support of France could make it possible to defuse this source of conflicts.
Turkish foreign policy in Africa is also a source of concern for France. Ankara is increasingly taking its marks on the continent, at the detriment of Paris, who sees her influence tumbled. Symbolically, it was to the Turkish forces that the Chadian regime of Mahamat Idriss Déby entrusted in February the military base of Abéché, of which he came to request the departure of the French troops. Similarly, the son -in -law of Erdogan Selçuk Bayraktar sold drones to the Malian and Nigerian junts, who broke their military agreements with France in 2022 and 2023. “France must accept the new deal of the Turkish presence in Africa and wonder about cooperation methods, argues Sinan Ulgen. After all, is it not better for Europe that Ankara develops in Africa rather than Beijing or Moscow?”
To act as a reliable partner in the eyes of the twenty-seven, Turkey could also be forced to amend its “balance policy” between Moscow and kyiv, which she has been carrying out since the start of the Russian invasion. Since the invasion of Crimea, in 2014, Ankara has affirmed her opposition to any change of borders and provided military equipment in kyiv, while taking care not to displease Moscow. The Turkish regime has thus served as a platform to allow Russia to bypass Western sanctions. Moreover, Turkey is very dependent on Russia in the energy and tourism sectors, but also in Syria, in the Caucasus and until Libya, so many files on which the two countries dialogue, although supporting opposite camps.
Erdogan the balancingist
However, Turkey has no interest in seeing Russia seize Ukrainian ports and reverse strategic balance in the Black Sea. “Europeans, for their part, cannot rationally count on Romania and Bulgaria to maintain their interests in the Black Sea, without Turkey, which has a substantial fleet and controls the straits of Bosphorus and Dardanelles,” recalls Erhan Kelesoglu.
Will the cunning Erdogan, so clever to compose with both camps, be able to keep his balancingist position? Nothing is less certain, replies the former Turkish diplomat Sinan Ulgen: “Turkey will have to take a position more clearly against Moscow if it wants to be part of the new European defense architecture which identifies Moscow as the main threat.” But, if a rapprochement with Europe could take place in the military and economic fields, the horizon of an integration of Turkey into the EU seems however distant. Membership negotiations have been at downturn for years due to European concerns about the human rights situation in Türkiye. The new authoritarian turn taken by power, with the arrest, then the imprisonment of the mayor of Istanbul and the main rival of Erdogan, Ekrem Imamoglu, resulted in immense demonstrations in Türkiye. A situation qualified by France “of serious attack on democracy”, while German diplomacy stressed that “the place of opponents is not in the courts or in prison”. As for Brussels institutions, they were content to encourage Turkey to “maintain democratic values”. Declarations that have not convinced Ozgür Ozel, the leader of the CHP, the main opposition party. “Europe has already haggling with Erdogan to keep migrants. It should not, on behalf of concerns about its security, sacrifice Turkish democracy,” warned the opponent.
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