Hollande on Erdogan: He considers twists and turns diplomatic – show two faces

The Turkish president is a paradoxical figure who considers “ambiguity a feature” and “the vagaries of diplomacy”, who, like his “latent enemy”, Putin, appears warm and communicative at first, but then becomes cold and controversial with Recep Tayyip Erdogan. , as explained by former French President François Hollande in his latest book, Bouleversements. Éditions Stock.

In a chapter of the book titled “Ottoman Nostalgia,” Holland states that “the one who is sometimes presented as the new sultan,” sometimes in the name of political Islam, “was flirting with many contradictory ambitions.” Since coming to power, Erdogan, according to Hollande, has shown two faces. start He emerged as an open-minded modern leader who was able to reconcile Islam and democracy. He promoted the cause of Turkey’s accession to the European Union, improved his country’s finances, took advantage of the Arab Spring, and tried to increase his influence in the Middle East.

In the second stage Erdogan sees, according to Holland, “the withering of the flowers of the Arab Spring” and the developments in Syria, Egypt, Libya and the Gulf states that are not in line with Turkish interests, isolating himself from everyone and drawing a new strategy based on aggression. Ottoman nostalgia. As part of this strategy, in 2015 hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees were allowed to reach the islands and coasts of Greece, in order to “get money” then, as Holland points out, by closing the borders. It was a form of blackmail that Angela Merkel did not resist and that persuaded, even after much suffering, other Europeans not to resist too, Holland says, noting that Europe has since turned a blind eye to Turkey’s growing human rights abuses. . Referring to the failed 2016 military coup against Erdogan, Hollande notes that the Turkish president’s insistence on US and European support for the Gulen community is unfounded and used as an excuse to distance Turkey from the West. According to Holland, Erdogan, in his quest to re-establish the Ottoman Empire, even if virtually, decided to engage in various conflicts, from Africa to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Caucasus. Ambiguity also characterizes the presence of Turkey in NATO, which, as Holland notes, buys weapons from Russia, sets conditions for integration between Sweden and Finland, and is currently seeking a verbal confrontation with Greece, insisting on the occupation of the North. Cyprus, which obstructs any attempt to bring the two communities together and questions the right of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, to exploit oil fields in its offshore zone. Concluding and referring to Kurdish, François Hollande notes that Erdogan has no problem supporting those who oppose the West, citing for example his decision to engage with Iran and Russia in Tehran in July 2022.

source: RES-EMP

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