Turkey plays Khashoggi crisis to its geopolitical advantage
By James M. Dorsey
With Turkish investigators asserting that they
have found further evidence that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed
when he visited the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago, Turkey
appears to be leveraging the case to enhance its position as a leader of the
Islamic World and reposition itself as a key US ally.
To enhance its geopolitical position vis a vis Saudi Arabia
as well as Russia and Iran and potentially garner economic advantage at a time
that it is struggling to reverse a financial downturn, Turkey has so far leaked
assertions of evidence it says it has of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing
rather than announced them officially.
In doing so, Turkey has forced Saudi Arabia to allow Turkish
investigators accompanied by Saudi officials to enter the consulate and
positioned President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the kingdom’s saviour by
engineering a situation that will allow the kingdom to craft a face-saving way
out of the crisis.
Saudi Arabia is reportedly considering announcing that Mr.
Khashoggi, a widely-acclaimed journalist critical of Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman who went into self-exile because he feared arrest, was
killed in either a rogue operation or an attempt gone awry to forcibly
repatriate it him back to the kingdom.
US President Donald J. Trump offered the Turks and Saudis a
helping hand by referring
this week to the possibility of Mr. Khashoggi having been killed by rogues
and dispatching Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Riyadh and Ankara.
Mr. Khashoggi, seeking to obtain proof of his divorce in the
kingdom so that he could marry his Turkish fiancé, visited the consulate two
weeks ago for the second time after having allegedly received assurances that
he would be safe.
Turkey emerges as the crisis moves towards a situation in
which an official version is agreed that seeks to shield Prince Mohammed from
being held responsible for Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and likely murder with
its international status significantly enhanced.
Turkish leverage is further boosted by the fact that Saudi
Arabia -- its image in government, political and business circles significantly
damaged by the crisis -- and the Trump administration that wants to ensure that
the kingdom’s ruling family emerges from the crisis as unscathed as possible,
are in Ankara’s debt.
As a result, the denouement of the Khashoggi crisis is
likely to alter the dynamics in the long-standing competition between Turkey
and Saudi Arabia for leadership of the Islamic world.
It also strengthens Turkey’s position in its transactional
alliance with Russia and Iran as they manoeuvre
to end the war in Syria in a manner that cements Bashar al-Assad’s
presidency while addressing Turkish concerns.
Turkey’s position in its rivalry with Saudi Arabia is likely
to also benefit from the fact that whatever face-saving solution the kingdom
adopts is likely to be flawed when tested by available facts and certain to be
challenged by a host of critics, even if many will see Turkey as having
facilitated a political solution rather than ensuring that the truth is
established.
Already, Mr. Khashoggi’s family who was initially quoted by
Saudi Arabia’s state-controlled media as backing
Saudi denials of responsibility, insinuations that his fate was the
product of a conspiracy by Qatar and/or Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood, and
casting doubt on the integrity of the journalist’s Turkish fiancée, has called
for “the establishment of an
independent and impartial international commission to inquire into
the circumstances of his death.”
Turkey and Saudi Arabia differ on multiple issues that
divide the Muslim world. Turkey has vowed to help
Iran circumvent Saudi-supported US sanctions imposed after Mr. Trump
withdrew in May from the 2015 international agreement that curbed the Islamic
republic’s nuclear agreement.
Turkey
further backs Qatar in its dispute with a Saudi-United Arab
Emirates-led alliance that has diplomatically and economically boycotted the
Gulf state for the last 16 months. The credibility of the alliance’s allegation
that Qatar supports terrorism and extremism has been dented by the growing
conviction that Saudi Arabia, whether in a planned, rogue or repatriation
effort gone wrong, was responsible for Mr. Khashoggi’s killing.
Mr. Khashoggi’s death, moreover, highlighted differing
approaches towards the Brotherhood, one of the Middle East’s most persecuted,
yet influential Islamist groupings. Saudi Arabia, alongside the UAE and Egypt,
have designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
Many brothers have sought refuge in Turkey with Mr. Erdogan
empathetic and supportive of the group. A former brother, Mr. Khashoggi criticized
Saudi repression of the group.
The Saudi-Turkish rivalry for leadership of the Muslim world
was most evident in the two countries’ responses to Mr. Trump’s recognition of
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his as yet unpublished plan to resolve
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Turkey emerged as the leader
of Islamic denunciation of Mr. Trump’s move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem and recognition of the city as Israel’s capital after
Prince Mohammed tried to dampen opposition. Ultimately, King Salman was forced
to step in a bid to clarify
the kingdom’s position and counter Turkish moves.
No matter how Turkey decides to officially release whatever
evidence it has, Saudi Arabia figures out how to respond and halt the
haemorrhaging, and Mr. Pompeo holds talks with King Salman and Mr. Erdogan,
Turkey is likely to emerge from the crisis strengthened despite its
increasingly illiberal and increasingly authoritarian rule at home,
Turkey’s success is all the more remarkable given that it
has neither Saudi Arabia’s financial muscle nor the mantle the kingdom adopts
as the custodian of Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina.
A successful political resolution of the Khashoggi crisis is
likely to earn it the gratitude of the Trump administration, Saudi Arabia, and its
other detractors like the UAE who support the kingdom even if it may help it to
regain popularity in the Arab world lost as a result of its swing towards
authoritarianism, alliance with Iran and Qatar, and support for Islamism.
One immediate Turkish victory is likely to be Saudi
acquiesce to Mr. Erdogan’s demand that Saudi Arabia drop its support for
Kurdish rebels in Syria that Ankara sees as terrorists – a move that would
boost Turkey’s position the Turkish-Russian-Iranian jockeying for influence in
a post-war Syria. Turkey is also likely to see Saudi Arabia support it
economically.
Turkey may, however, be playing for higher stakes.
Turkey "wants to back
Saudi Arabia to the wall. (It wants to) disparage the 'reformist'
image that Saudi Arabia has been constructing in the West” in a bid to get the
US to choose Ankara as its primary ally in the Middle East, said international
relations scholar Serhat Guvenc.
Turkey’s relations in recent years have soured as a result
of Turkish
insistence that the US is harbouring a terrorist by refusing to extradite
Fethullah Gulen, the preacher it accuses of having engineered the
failed 2016 coup; detaining
American nationals and US consulate employees on allegedly trumped
up charges, cosying up to Russia and purchasing
its S-400 surface to air missile system, and aligning itself with
Iran. Relations were further strained by US
support for Syrian Kurds.
Mr. Trump, however this week heralded
a new era in US-Turkish relations after the release of Andrew
Brunson, an evangelist preacher who was imprisoned in Turkey for two years on
charges of espionage.
Mr. Guvenc argued that Turkey hopes that Saudi Arabia’s
battered image will help it persuade Mr. Trump that Turkey rather than the
kingdom is its strongest and most reliable ally alongside Israel in the Middle
East.
Said journalist Ferhat Unlu: “"Turkey knows how to manage
diplomatic crises. Its strategy is to manage tensions to its
advantage,”
Dr.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture,
and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast.
James is the author of The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title and a co-authored
volume, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and
the Middle East and North Africa as well as Shifting
Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
and just published China
and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom
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