Many more efforts are needed to rebuild trust among the leaders of the countries and remove the sediment left by the assassination of Hashukaji. Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman hosts Turkish President Erdogan, April 28, 2022 (Saudi Foreign Ministry)
It often happens that the nature of the personal relationship that prevails between two leaders affects, positively or negatively, the relations between their countries. Relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia over the past decade illustrate how true this statement is, claims Mahmoud Alush, an Arab publicist specializing in international relations, at the beginning of an analysis he published in Al-Jazeera in early May about reconciliation between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The region, which Erdogan has been leading in recent months.
With the rise of King Salman to the Saudi throne, in 2015, very good relations prevailed between him and Erdogan. Turkey even supported Operation “Decisive Storm”, which Saudi Arabia led against the Houthis in Yemen, criticized Iran and its intervention in what was happening outside its borders, and the two countries provided assistance to the Syrian opposition. All this happened despite Erdogan’s sympathetic attitude to the rise of political Islam in the wake of the Arab Spring, much to the displeasure of Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region, such as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
However, growing anger over Turkey’s growing regional influence, Erdogan’s intervention in the region’s countries and his good relations with the Muslim Brotherhood (to which his party has an ideological affiliation) eventually led to a divergence of relations between the two countries. The point in time when this change began, according to Alush, was around the appointment of Muhammad bin Salman as Saudi Arabia’s heir to the throne in 2017 – a move that also marked his becoming the de facto ruler of the kingdom.
Not just economic interests
Ben Salman led a regional alliance against political Islam, in moves that openly expressed his hostility to Erdogan and his policies, including the imposition of a blockade on Qatar, Turkey’s ally, in cooperation with Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE, and their demand to close the Turkish base established in Qatar. This was joined by the assassination of journalist Jamal Hashukaji at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul about a year later, which led to an unprecedented rift in relations between Ankara and Riyadh.
But the turmoil experienced by the Middle East over the past decade and the severe economic crisis Erdogan faces in the shadow of a fateful election campaign that threatens to continue his rule have led Erdogan to embark on a campaign to improve relations between his country and the region: in May 2021 , And initiated a similar reconciliation process with the UAE, which included a media visit to Ankara by Abu Dhabi’s regent, Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed, at the end of that year.
President Herzog’s visit to Turkey, at Erdogan’s invitation, and the “new page” in relations between the two countries are part of the same trend, leading to the next stage in Erdogan’s plan – his official and well-publicized visit to Saudi Arabia and the legal proceedings in Turkey. To what appears to be a condition imposed by the Saudi regime).
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have clear interests in this reconciliation, mainly economic, claims Alush in his turn. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are aware that Turkey has a significant position on the new international trade and energy routes, and that the Turkish market is considered a promising investment. It also seems that the economic challenges posed by the corona crisis have led these countries to change the priorities of their foreign policy.
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However, the economic factor is not enough to understand the trend of improvement in relations between Turkey and the countries of the region, explains Alush, and suggests three other factors, related to the changing geopolitical circumstances in the region and the world, that led these countries’ leaders to lead this trend in their foreign relations.
First, Alush notes, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates appear to have realized that a decade after the Arab Spring, the ongoing conflict between them and Turkey does not help find solutions to the region’s crises, harms their interests and allows Iran to increase its regional influence.
Another possible factor that has led to this reconciliation, Alush adds, is the foreign policy led by President Biden. For unlike its predecessor, the White House now houses a president who expects regional leaders to reduce conflicts within the Middle East internally, and to turn their attention to the international challenges posed by Russia and China.
A third factor has to do with Erdogan’s apparent choice to stop his ardent support for political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood – one of the main reasons for the rift between him and the countries in the region. Over the past decade, Erdogan has openly supported the Muslim Brotherhood’s political movements across the region, hoping these would lead to the rise of Islamists to power through the polls. However, following negotiations for a reconciliation between Turkey and Egypt in the past year, Alush notes, Erdogan has imposed various restrictions on the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood channels of communication operating on Turkish soil. Alush explains that Erdogan seems to have internalized that the damage done by his support of the Muslim Brotherhood outweighs the benefit, especially in light of the success of the camp opposing the Muslim Brotherhood in leading to changes in the region following the Arab Spring.
Erdogan is leading a clear trend to improve relations with Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region, but at least in the Saudi case, Alush concludes, much more efforts are needed to rebuild trust between the leaders of the countries and remove the residue left by Hashukaji’s assassination. In the meantime, Alush estimates, it is likely that this change will be felt mainly in the economic sphere, when Saudi Arabia removes the unofficial boycott of Turkish goods and when Turkish businessmen return to Saudi Arabia. Political cooperation depends largely on the willingness of the countries to cooperate with each other to curb Iran’s influence in the region and on the willingness of the Biden government, which wants its allies in the region to work together to manage the region’s challenges in the future.
And grain Writes on a project Horizon, Collaboration between the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, The Regional Thinking Forum And the Alam Center. The project provides Hebrew readers with adapted content from media sites, magazines, research and information centers, and academic journals in Arabic..
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