By Sefa Yürükel
The steps taken by Turkey in West Asia recently are the product of a strategic cunning concealed behind the government’s “multidimensional foreign policy” rhetoric. Joint military exercises and defense industry cooperation with Pakistan, the surprisingly rapid thawing of years long diplomatic ice with Egypt, economic integration and joint fund mechanisms with Saudi Arabia. This triple pillar, though decorated with the rhetoric of regional peace and stability, is in reality an operational alignment orchestrated from Washington and locked directly onto opposition to Russia and Iran. Russia, China, and Iran are not only watching this activity carefully but are transforming each move into countermeasures through their joint defense and intelligence mechanisms. This article analyzes how the relations in question constitute an operation carried out on behalf of the United States and how the rising powers of Asia are in a position to foil this game.
The Pakistan Alliance: The Afghanistan and Central Asia Pincer
Turkey Pakistan relations are deepening rapidly under the banner of the defense industry. MİLGEM corvettes, exports of Bayraktar TB2 and AKINCI UAVs, joint exercises. This picture is too strategic and hasty to be explained by the bonds of brotherhood between the two countries. The real objective is to establish a corridor of influence stretching through Pakistan into Afghanistan and Central Asia. Filling the vacuum left in post Taliban Afghanistan and gaining observation and intervention capability along the critical routes of China’s Belt and Road constitutes the essence of this alliance. Although the United States appears to have militarily withdrawn from Afghanistan, it has not completely abandoned the region. The Turkey Pakistan duo is being positioned as Washington’s indirect intervention apparatus in the region. This situation directly targets Russia and China, which have been increasing their effectiveness in Central Asia, and is a direct challenge to the security architecture of the two powers under the umbrella of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Russia and China clearly see this Atlanticist operation hidden behind Turkey’s “brother country” rhetoric in Central Asia and are strengthening their own military and economic engagements accordingly.
The Egypt Opening: A Front Against Russia in the Mediterranean and Eastern Mediterranean
The renewed diplomatic traffic between Turkey and Egypt is an operation to corner Russia in the Eastern Mediterranean equation. In recent years, Egypt had deepened its military cooperation with Russia, directed its arms purchases to Moscow, and given tacit approval to Russia’s military presence in Libya. Turkey’s reconciliation with Egypt is the implementation of a scenario desired by Washington: adding Egypt to the US axis encirclement line that began with Greece, Southern Cyprus, and Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean. While ostensibly consolidating its claims in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean by agreeing with Egypt, the government is committing behind the scenes to rolling back Russia’s military influence in the region. This situation is an open threat to Russia’s presence in Tartus and Tobruk. Moscow is evaluating the Ankara Cairo rapprochement in this context and is further consolidating its presence in Libya.
Economic Integration with Saudi Arabia: The Strategy to Financially Strangle Iran
The rapid normalization with Saudi Arabia is not merely an improvement in personal relations with Crown Prince Salman but is part of the financial war waged by the United States against Iran. In the face of its chronic foreign exchange crisis in recent years, Turkey has become dependent on the flow of foreign currency from Saudi Arabia. This dependency leaves Ankara’s foreign policy maneuverability at the mercy of Riyadh and consequently Washington. While Saudi Arabia is taking steps toward normalization with Iran in the Gulf, ensuring that Turkey remains in an anti Iran bloc is of vital importance to the United States. By opening its doors to Saudi capital, the government is trying to keep its economy afloat on one hand, while on the other becoming an active element of the economic sanctions and isolation policy conducted against Iran. Iran assesses this economic integration as a threat to its national security and is responding by diversifying its energy and trade channels with Turkey.
The Careful Monitoring and Countermeasures of Russia, China, and Iran
Russia, China, and Iran are not merely watching the Turkish government’s triple cunning; they are simultaneously activating their own countermeasures. Russia is balancing Turkey’s influence attempts in Central Asia within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, increasing its military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, and narrowing Turkey’s operational space in northern Syria. China is drawing the Turkey Pakistan axis under its own economic umbrella by deepening its Belt and Road investments in Pakistan, thereby preventing this axis from remaining solely military and intelligence based. Iran, for its part, is encircling Turkey through its proxy forces and energy diplomacy in the region, damming Ankara’s strategic depth ambitions by fortifying its influence in Iraq and Syria.
A Doomed Cunning
The relations established by the Turkish government with Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are nothing more than cunning marketed under the rhetoric of regional leadership and strategic autonomy, yet at their core serving the United States’ operational architecture against Russia and Iran. This cunning is built on a shallow calculation that fails to account for the flow of history and the deep dynamics of the region. Russia, China, and Iran are reading this game clearly and responding to every move. The Turkish government will pay a heavy price in the long run for positioning itself as the United States’ subcontractor in the region, and each day it prefers to be the cunning figurant of the Atlantic rather than establishing genuine and balanced relations with its neighbors, it darkens its own regional future. The real winners in West Asia will be the powers that define their own interests independently and correctly read the rise of Asia.
Bibliography
Presidency of Defense Industries, Turkey Pakistan Defense Industry Cooperation Agreements and Joint Exercise Documents, Official Statements, 2023-2024.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Joint Statement on the Reestablishment of Turkey Egypt Diplomatic Relations, 2024.
Ministry of Trade, Turkey Saudi Arabia Economic Partnership and Fund Agreements, Official Gazette Publications, 2023.
SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), Trends in International Arms Transfers: Turkey’s Growing Role in Middle East and South Asia, 2024 Report.
Andrew Korybko, Hybrid Wars: The Indirect Adaptive Approach to Regime Change, Institute for Strategic Studies, 2015. (Geopolitical analysis of the Turkey Pakistan military alliance.)
War on the Rocks / Foreign Policy, Turkey’s Role in the Eastern Mediterranean: Balancing or Bandwagoning? Current Analyses, 2024.
Carnegie Middle East Center, Recalibrating Alliances: Turkey, Egypt and the New Eastern Mediterranean Geopolitics, 2024.
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Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Statements on Military Presence and Security Assessments in the Eastern Mediterranean, 2024.
Sefa Yürükel
Danish ethnographer and social anthropologist (MA)
Aarhus University, 1997
Independent Researcher
Fields of Research: International Politics, Public International Law, Geopolitics, Sociology, Psychology, Cultural Studies, Systems and Structures.
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