Keeping pro-Pak Turkey on tenterhooks

While the Turks would continue to be a thorn in the flesh for India, they would lose out on trade deals, such as the called-off maritime vessel deal worth around $2 bn. India has turned the screw further by way of its recent overtures to the Cypriots and the Armenians to castigate Turkey.

Group Capt Murli Menon (Retd)

Defence analyst

During my stint as the consul at Ankara’s Indian embassy from 2008 to 2011, I saw a lot being achieved by heads of the mission, such as Ramindar Jassal, in terms of considerably improved Indo-Turkish ties. Traditionally sympathetic to Pakistan’s cause, especially on Kashmir, the Turks had begun to see India in a different light. Our western neighbour had been smart enough over the years to make the Turks think that their country’s Muslim citizens were responsible for the considerable monetary and help in kind — gold ornaments galore, I believe — that flowed from unpartitioned India into Turkey to help with their Caliphate ambitions. Some deft diplomatic work by our mission staff managed to convince the Turks about the correctness of history and this, perhaps, contributed in some measure to the rising esteem of India in the minds of the hardy Turks.

The large number of yoga centres all around Turkey and the increased trade and cultural ties between the two countries were testimony to this. The K-word was avoided generally by them, though once in a while, there was a penchant to show their concern in favour of Pakistan, such as in a seminar organised in Istanbul by Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai of the Kashmir Action Council, which I managed to attend furtively, where Turkish officials tended to show their sympathy for the Kashmiris.

Schools run by Fateullah Gulen and promoted by the Indo-Turkish Business Association prospered in major Indian cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad and things were looking rosy, indeed, between the two countries. But all in a short span of time recently, commencing with Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s little stunt at the UN General Assembly last year, and then his recent utterances in Islamabad comparing Kashmir to Gallipoli, have turned the tide for Erdogan.

Meanwhile, Turkey and Russia have reached a breaking point in their Syrian standoff. Amid his military operations against Russia-backed Syrian troops, Erdogan finds himself having to backtrack on his earlier anti-West and anti-NATO stand, almost pleading for help from the Americans and other erstwhile NATO allies, such as France and Germany. Large-scale refugee efflux from Syria into Turkey and the impending rout of their own sponsored rebels at the hands of the Syrian National Army is what has turned the tables on the Turkish President.

Anyway, like they say, pride goes before a fall. His Neo-Ottoman ambitions are dealing a severe blow to the Islamist leader who recently promoted himself to presidency after over a decade as the prime minister and a stint as Istanbul mayor. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk must be turning in his grave to see his vision of a modern and progressive Turkey turned as under by the highly Islam-leaning Erdogan. And to top it all, his AKP has lost the Istanbul mayorship to the opposition in what could be a sign of grim days ahead for a strong tough leader who brooked no opposition or dissent politically.

His targeting of mediapersons not on his side is legion. Some of my journalist friends have, unfortunately, found themselves at the wrong end of the establishment’s stick. And it’s not that Erdogan is a benevolent dictator. Stories about his corruption, including oil deals for his son-in-law, abound in a saga of tremendous economic well-being for Turkey to its heavily sanctioned plight now with a crashing lira against the dollar.

Turkey had recently signed a deal with the Russians for the S-400 Triumph SAMs which have arrived in the country and are scheduled to be operational by June. Now, he has requested the US to give him the Patriot missile system to counter the Russian air power being unleashed at his forward troops. The Americans, of course, would not sleep over this one bit as they would now be able to twist the Turks to toe their line militarily and politically. Turkey already finds itself out of the F-35 co-production deal with the Americans over the S400 deal and the diplomatic fiasco against an American preacher in Turkey. Now, the Russians would expectedly renege on the S-400 deal, their long-term interests being with Syria’s Assad and access to the warm water ports in his country’s Mediterranean coast.

India could have had some cooperation with the Turks on the S-400 as we are on the verge of acquiring the same system ourselves. The Americans were also hoping to rope in India on the F-35 project in place of Turkey. But this could falter on account of the fact that the Americans are likely to hold any prospective Patriot deal against a reentry for Turkey into the foregone project and the linked spare manufacture deal. Turkey’s aeronautical industry being robust and capable, this is not something the Americans would be averse to.

On the whole, therefore, the Turks are in dire straits. While they would continue to be a thorn in the flesh for us in India, thanks to their Islamist pro-Pakistan posturing, they would lose out on valuable trade deals with India, such as the called-off maritime vessel deal worth around $2 billion. India has turned the screw further on Turkey by way of its recent overtures to the Cypriots and the Armenians to castigate Turkey for its behaviour in Pakistan and at the UN.

But all said and done, Turkey is not a country to make enemies with. Let’s not forget that Babur was a Turk and some Turks still nurse ambitions of that lost glory. The Turkish Ambassador to India a while ago, Burak Akcapar, half jokingly told me at a chance meeting in New Delhi that Turkey had a presence in Delhi since the 15th century, alluding to the reign of Babur. When I had met the then Prime Minister Erdogan at a reception in Ankara, little did I realise that his profile would be that of a shooting star.

But then, that’s what happens to anyone who crosses swords with the only superpower in the world. It’s a matter of time before Turkey finds itself even more marginalised within Europe and NATO. India, with its steady upward vector in global power politics, would still have the last laugh.