Erdogan wants to enter European defence through the “window” – The dilemmas for Greece and Cyprus

The great opportunity to promote on its own terms a “special relationship” with the EU, extracting strategic advantages, with no commitments and obligations, is sought by Turkey in the crisis caused by the Transatlantic rift over the war in Ukraine.

Turkey’s aim is at this difficult juncture for Europe, where questions about Europe‘s military involvement in the Ukraine without US support are creating crisis conditions, to appear as the power that can contribute, with its strategic position and its relations with the belligerents, with its ability to provide military forces and modern equipment, but also with its “diplomacy”, to addressing the problems of the EU.

What Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself in two speeches last week called the EU’s strategic deadlock. “Only Turkey’s full membership of the Union can save the European Union from the impasse it has reached, from economy to defense, from politics to international prestige. It is Turkey’s full membership that will breathe life into Europe, whose economy and demographic structure are rapidly aging,” Erdogan said after last week’s Cabinet meeting.

Just yesterday, at the Iftar dinner for foreign diplomats, Erdogan reiterated that “it is becoming increasingly impossible for Europe to survive as a global player without Turkey’s rightful place in it. To put it bluntly, a secure Europe without Turkey is unthinkable.”

Turkey is now moving in a dual direction, looking to capitalize on a volatile international situation and the upheaval in global balances brought about by the Trump presidency. On the one hand, it is trying to lure Washington by offering to have a role of facilitating the Washington-Moscow talks, but there it knows that there is the unpredictable factor Donald Trump. At the same time, he wants to exploit the weakness of the EU to enter the European Defence and Security Pillar processes through the window, as an antechamber for a special upgraded relationship with the EU.

The weakness of the EU. for a common stance , leads to a Alliance of the Willing to engage in the Ukrainian crisis as a counterweight to Washington’s withdrawal, as was seen in the composition of the two meetings of Emanuel Macron in Paris and the composition of the conference convened by British Prime Minister Kir Starmer in London on the Ukraine.

The Alliance will be based on both NATO member countries that are also members of the EU and those that are not members of the European family, such as Canada and Turkey. This also bypasses the veto power available to pro-Russian European governments to adopt a European diplomatic and military response to create a purely European framework for the security of Europe.

The EU’s Coalition of the Willing, which will choose to necessarily involve Turkey perhaps because of necessity and because of its proximity to the crisis region and the Black Sea, will practically threaten with “exclusion” those who either disagree with European intervention or those who oppose Turkey’s participation in a distinctly European project.

It is obvious that Turkey will not stop there and by building a dynamic relationship in this Alliance of the Willing and seeking a central role in shaping this new security architecture on the Europe, it will demand quid pro quo and use its role for leverage in promoting its relations with the EU as well, bypassing terms and conditions set by the EU.

This offers a significant advantage for Ankara, despite the risk that such a stance could be seen as a hostile move by the new U.S. administration.

Turkey has been working systematically in recent years to penetrate the large European defense and security fund, which is not easy because of the constraints and the commitments it has not fulfilled.

The “battering ram”is also the Turkish war industry, which has now spread out and gained access to the armaments of European states. Turkish drones are being sold to several European countries, Portugal is procuring patrol ships from Turkey, and Spain is not only cooperating with the construction of a Turkish helicopter carrier based on Spanish designs, but is also preparing a deal to buy a Turkish training aircraft.

Just last week, Spanish forces participated in a joint landing exercise with the Turkish Armed Forces opposite Samos, while the Turkish and Spanish Air Chiefs of Staff conducted a test flight on February 26, piloting two Turkish-built Hürjets fighters.

It is telling that Britain, which is in the same position as Turkey: a NATO member that is not a member of the EU, now plays a central role in these processes. London has in the past shown a willingness to engage Turkey in European affairs. And recently, with the Eurofighter and Meteor, it has been shown in practice.

Moreover, London also wants to gain counterbalances through gaining influence in the Middle East, after years of abandoning this region, where it had strategic interests in the past.

France does not want to be left out of a large 85 million market and may prefer to work with Ankara in areas where it had conflicting interests, such as Lebanon and the Eastern Mediterranean. In the ongoing realignments, it understands that Turkey is useful, despite its peculiarities, and through this cooperation it can advance its own interests.

Turkey’s important plan to buy through Baykar the Italian aerospace company Leonardo was not just a very good commercial deal. Leonardo, as one of the major European defense industries, will have a significant share of the billion-dollar arms package that the EU will necessarily embark on in the next few years. Thus, European funds will now directly direct and finance the largest Turkish defense industry, which will thus bring down the wall that has formally prevented the Turkish defense industry from accessing the EU market.

This situation creates major dilemmas for Greece and Cyprus, as in addition to the “special relationship” that Turkey is attempting to build with the EU, there will be a visible danger of losing the only strong leverage they have against Turkish aggression, which is the Euro-Turkish relations.

Source: pagenews.gr