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ISTANBUL, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan held a rare phone call with the UAE's de facto ruler, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Erdogan's office said on Tuesday, in a new sign of efforts to improve ties between the regional rivals.

Turkey and the UAE have competed for regional influence since the Arab uprisings erupted a decade ago, a rivalry which saw them backing different sides in Libya's civil war and extended to disputes from the eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf.

Erdogan said last year Turkey was considering breaking off diplomatic relations after the Gulf state's accord to normalise ties with Israel.

"Relations between the countries and regional issues were discussed in the talks," Erdogan's office said of his call with Sheikh Mohammed.

The call came two weeks after Erdogan met a senior UAE official and said the two countries had made progress in improving relations which could lead to significant UAE investment in Turkey. read more

"It is in everyone's interest to pursue an agreement-based policy instead of a conflict-based policy. Because the latter has costs. This is an important development," a senior Turkish official said of the latest talks.

Ankara and Abu Dhabi have backed rival groups in the Middle East for years, with Turkey supporting Islamist movements, especially the Muslim Brotherhood which took part in the Arab Spring uprisings in a bid to overthrow autocrats in the region. Wealthy Gulf leaders worry such unrest would reach home.

The UAE's state news agency WAM said both leaders discussed "the prospects of reinforcing relations between the two nations in a way that serves their common interests and their two peoples."

Turkey last year accused the UAE of bringing chaos to the Middle East through interventions in Libya and Yemen, while the UAE and several other countries criticised Turkey's military actions.

Ankara has also made overtures this year towards the UAE's main regional allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, aimed at overcoming tensions that have impacted Turkey's economy.

Turkey's tense ties with Saudi Arabia collapsed after the 2018 killing by Saudi agents of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Relations with Egypt have been strained since the military overthrew Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Erdogan, whose ruling AK Party is rooted in political Islam, had been a strong supporter of Mursi.

The two countries said on Tuesday they would hold a second round of talk next week. The Turkish official said it was unrealistic to expect to solve long-term problems in a short period of time.

"But there is a will to solve them. The issues will not worsen, in the short and medium term relations will get better."

Reporting by Orhan Coskun and Aziz El YaakoubiWriting by Daren ButlerEditing by Kim Coghill and Angus MacSwan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Turkey's Erdogan speaks with UAE crown prince over strained ties - Reuters

Images of Afghan refugees scrambling to escape Kabul following the Talibans seizure of power will haunt the international community for decades. According to the United Nations, 550,000 people have been displaced in Afghanistan this year alone. In the middle of the Talibans lightning nationwide offensive, between twenty and thirty thousand Afghans are thought to be leaving the country every week.

These numbers are expected to escalate rapidly after the collapse of President Ashraf Ghanis government and a new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is established. Meanwhile, Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has heightened his anti-refugee rhetoric with an eye toward leveraging the situation, assuring his NATO allies that his country will neither house refugees nor act as an intermediary in the resettlement process.

This is an unprecedented but localized humanitarian crisis. If NATO refuses to take a hard line with Turkeys manoeuvring, it will become a global one as well.

Several NATO members have already responded by pledging support for Afghans fleeing the Taliban. Among them, Canada has promised to resettle 20,000 refugees, and the UK is expecting 5,000, prioritising women, children, and religious minorities.

Although these measures have been rightly criticised for not going far enough, they do at least indicate a basic level of commitment to NATOs fundamental values, including humanitarianism and a sense of shared responsibility.

In stark contrast, Erdogan, Turkeys authoritarian leader, has responded to the unfolding crisis with callous disregard. A NATO member since 1952, Turkeys primary response to the unfolding crisis is to build a physical wall along its borders while erecting legal barriers to keep Afghan refugees out at all costs.

Already, a 243-kilometer barbed wire-topped concrete wall is under construction along Turkeys border with Iran to deter Afghan refugees. Just this week, Ankara deployed 750 elite troops to fortify the border.

Erdogans disregard for the safety and wellbeing of Afghan refugees is hardly surprising, given his administrations systematic abuses of domestic minorities, including the Kurdish and LGBT communities, amongst others. Erdogans steady drift towards authoritarianism has been signposted along the way by a consistent assault on human rights.

Just as predictable will be Erdogans willingness to use Afghan refugees as a diplomatic bargaining chip.

For the past ten years, Ankara has treated its Syrian refugee population as a pawn in its diplomatic maneuvers, especially in relation to its European neighbors prompting accusations of blackmail from EU ambassadors.

Ever since Chancellor Angela Merkels stoic response to the 2015 refugee crisis summed up memorably in the phrase Wir schaffen das (well manage this) provoked a blistering domestic backlash, Erdogan has assiduously manipulated his countrys role as a buffer zone to exact endless concessions from Europe.

Although the EU provides billions of dollars in assistance to Turkey to aid Syrian refugees, Erdogan frequently complains that the money goes through aid groups rather than directly to his endemically corrupt government. Make no mistake, Erdogan fully intends to draw on the same playbook and play politics with the Afghan refugee crisis.

Erdogan has perfected the art of operating at the very edge of what other NATO members will tolerate, mixing flagrant breaches of common values with small symbolic gestures of solidarity. Erdogans last minute offer to send Turkish troops to secure Kabul airport just ahead of his meeting with President Joe Biden is a perfect example of the latter.

Having banked that diplomatic credit with Washington, the Turkish administration will now feel it has a freer hand to deal brutally with incoming Afghan refugees while simultaneously threatening to destabilise the EU by channelling unsustainable numbers of asylum seekers towards European shores.

Erdogan intends to blockade his countrys border with Iran in order to prevent a domestic backlash similar to what Chancellor Merkel endured in 2015, while using the growing population of refugees on Turkeys eastern flank to forestall EU action against his regimes many abuses.

Unless NATO and the EU take decisive steps to resolve the current refugee crisis, Turkeys dictator in waiting will purposefully exasperate the suffering of Afghan asylum seekers to finalise his demolition of Turkeys civic infrastructure and, in turn, become an even bigger thorn in the side for his erstwhile allies.

If Europe and its close allies dont manage this, Erdogan will.

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How Erdogan will manage the Afghan refugee crisis - New Europe

The Kanal Istanbul, an under-construction shipping route running parallel to the strategically critical Bosphorus Strait, is fast gaining prominence as a major divisive issue in Turkey, where an election in 2023 decides the fate of right-wing President Recep Tayyib Erdogan, a strongman who has long sought to portray his country as a global heavyweight, but who is blamed for eroding its secular traditions.

The canal, once described by Erdogan himself as a crazy project, is being seen as a lifeline for the leader, who has been at Turkeys helm since 2003 (first as Prime Minister and then as President), but has seen his popularity decline amid a sharp rise in pandemic deaths coupled with economic decline.

Although Erdogan insists that the multi-billion dollar project would bring Turkey economic benefits, opposition politicians and environmentalists have fiercely criticised it, as have others who believe that the canal could threaten a key multilateral treaty that has been the bedrock of peace in the region for nearly a century.

Erdogan, whose nearly two-decade-long rule has been marked by major improvements in Turkeys infrastructure, now wants to dig up a new route through Istanbul connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, which his Justice and Development Party (AKP) is touting as a major new source of income for the country.

In June, at a ceremony to begin the canals first phase, Erdogan told reporters that the project would cost $15 billion, will be 45km long and 21m deep, and would be constructed in six years.

The planned canal will run parallel to the Bosphorus Strait, a natural waterway that separates Europe and Asia, which for centuries has served as a key outlet for Russian ships entering the Mediterranean Sea. Since 1936, passage through the Strait has been governed by the Montreux Convention, a multilateral treaty that allows ships to go across almost free of cost during peacetime, and which tightly restricts the movement of naval vessels.

Turkish leaders say that the new canal, which will run on the European side of Bosphorus, will be safer and faster to navigate compared to the Bosphorus, making it a more attractive option for commercial ships, who will pay to pass through.

Analysts also believe that Erdogan would use the canal to circumvent Montreux Convention, by marketing the mega project to NATO allies as a legally kosher way of sending their warships into the Black Sea to counter Russia, their major geopolitical rival, all while attracting Chinese investment.

What do the canals opponents say?

Some of the projects most fierce opponents are within Turkeys military establishment. In April, 104 retired admirals signed an open letter insisting that the Montreux Convention is sacrosanct and should be left untouched, thus publicly challenging Erdogan. Following this, the president confirmed Turkeys commitment to the treaty, but proceeded to blame the signatories for instigating a coup like the one in 2016, and jailed 10 of the admirals. They were later released.

Erdogans political opponents blame him for using the project as a ruse for diverting public attention away from Turkeys pandemic numbers, soaring inflation and unemployment, and overall economic underperformance. Sure enough, Erdogans AKP fared poorly in a recent opinion poll, its popularity slipping below 30%, as per a New York Times report.

The ranks of those opposing also include Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul who pulled off a landslide victory against Erdogans AKP in 2019, and who could be a formidable challenger in the 2023 race.

Critics have also pointed to investigative reports exposing real estate deals in which buyers from the Middle East have picked up prime plots of land through which the canal will pass through.

Environmental experts, too, have expressed serious concerns. Among their fears is the threat that the canal would pose to Istanbuls water supply system of over four centuries, as a wooded area that houses this system would have to be dug up. Another worry is that the new artificial canal would bring polluted waters of the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmara, and ultimately in the Mediterranean.

Erdogan, however, has rubbished these concerns, calling the canal the most eco-friendly project in the world, as per an AFP report. He has also insisted, against expert opinion, that the canal would solve the Sea of Marmaras sea snot problem.

Industry experts have also expressed doubts about the projects viability, given the recent fall in the number of ships wanting to cross the Bosphorus. As per the AFP report, over the past decade, the number of vessels going through decreased from 53,000 to 38,000 a year, thanks to reduced dependence on fossil fuels in some countries as well as a rise in the use of oil pipelines.

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Explained: What is Kanal Istanbul, and why is Erdogan keen on seeing the project through? - The Indian Express

Issued on: 27/07/2021 - 20:18Modified: 27/07/2021 - 20:16

Athens (AFP)

The EU on Tuesday told Turkey to reverse plans to open up the Cypriot ghost town of Varosha, announced during a controversial visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the divided island.

The 27-nation bloc, which includes the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, condemned "Turkeys unilateral steps and the unacceptable announcements".

Erdogan and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar said last week they would open the former resort, abandoned since Ankara's 1974 invasion of the island.

A statement issued by the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell criticised the plans as breaching a series of United Nations resolutions.

The EU would consider using "instruments and options at its disposal to defend its interests", it said.

In Athens, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also condemned Erdogan's remarks.

"The new Turkish illegal actions in Cyprus must be condemned unequivocally," he said.

The latest declarations undermined UN resolutions and the efforts of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to resolve the longrunning dispute over the division of the island, he added.

Mitsotakis was speaking after talks with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades.

Anastasiades said he had made it clear to Athens that they were ready to resume talks with Ankara under UN mediation, and on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions.

- UN condemnation -

Varosha -- once the playground of celebrities and dubbed a "Jewel of the Mediterranean" -- has for decades been a fenced-off ghost town, its former luxury hotels overgrown by weeds.

Erdogan vowed that "life will restart in Varosha" during his visit to mark 47 years since the invasion that split Cyprus.

The Turkish army restored public access to parts of the Varosha beachfront last year and since then a main thoroughfare, Demokratias Avenue, has also been cleared.

Erdogan, in a speech during his visit, also insisted on a two-state solution for the island -- an idea firmly rejected by both EU member the Republic of Cyprus and Brussels.

The UN Security Council on Friday also condemned Erdogan's call for two states in Cyprus and the push to reopen the resort town emptied of Greek Cypriots.

The latest moves on Cyprus by Turkey risk derailing efforts to improve ties between Ankara and the EU after a spike in tensions in the eastern Mediterranean.

The EU is dangling a string of enticements in front of Erdogan, including billions of euros to help with refugees from Syria, if he makes good on pledges to mend fraught ties with the bloc.

Turkish troops seized the northern third of Cyprus in 1974 in response to an aborted coup in Nicosia aimed at attaching the country to Greece.

The island has since been divided between the Greek Cypriot-run Republic of Cyprus and the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is recognised only by Turkey.

2021 AFP

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EU warns Erdogan over push to open Cyprus ghost town - FRANCE 24

Diplomats the world over blinked in disbelief on Tuesday, July 13, when the news broke that the previous evening Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had phoned Israels newly elected president, Isaac Herzog, to offer his congratulations.

The surprise was all the greater when it emerged that the call between the two presidents had lasted 40 minutes.

His ire was especially roused by Israels incursion into Gaza in 2008 in its effort to stop Hamas firing rockets indiscriminately into the country. It culminated in his venomous attack on then-president Shimon Peres at the Davos conference in January 2009.

The Mavi Marmara affair in 2010 categorized by Erdogan as an armed Israeli attack on a humanitarian convoy, but about which much remains to be explained soured relations between Turkey and Israel for six years.

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Diplomatic ties were restored only in 2016. Two years later, in 2018, when the US recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital and moved its embassy there from Tel Aviv, Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel, and Israel followed suit.

The landmark Abraham Accords were perceived by Turkey as an overwhelmingly negative development. Erdogan condemned the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for abandoning the Palestinian cause and threatened to suspend diplomatic ties, although he never quite got round to doing so.

Thirteen years of sour Turco-Israeli relations and yet trade between the two nations grew exponentially over the period, quite regardless of the political dissensions. In 2008 bilateral trade between Turkey and Israel stood at $3.4 billion. Year-on-year expansion followed, and by 2020 it had doubled to a record $6.8b.

Moreover the 13 lean years arose on the foundation of 50 years of friendship, cooperation and flourishing trade. In March 1949 Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize the State of Israel. Cooperation grew between the two nations. Over the years trade and tourism boomed. Before the end of the century the Israel Air Force was practicing maneuvers in Turkish airspace, and Israeli technicians were modernizing Turkish combat jets. Projects involving collaboration in hi-tech and in water sharing were developed.

In May 2005 Erdogan, then prime minister, paid an official visit to Israel. In November 2007, four months after being elected president, Peres visited Turkey for three days and addressed its Grand National Assembly perhaps the high point in Turco-Israeli relations. They then unraveled pretty swiftly.

BY THE fall of 2020 Turkeys international standing was in the doldrums. The US presidential election was in full swing. US president Donald Trump may have turned a blind eye to Erdogans anti-Kurd land grab in northern Syria, but Joe Biden had expressed his sympathy for the Kurds. Even Trump had drawn the line at Turkey, a member of NATO, acquiring the USs state-of-the-art multipurpose F-35 fighter aircraft, while already purchasing the Russian S-400 antiaircraft system designed specifically to destroy aircraft like the F-35. Trump ejected him from the F-35 program and imposed sanctions. Biden, long opposed to Erdogans power-grabbing activities in Syria, would certainly not reverse that.

Neither Trump nor Biden favored Erdogans military interventions in Libya or in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, both pretty obviously designed to extend Turkish influence in the region.

Erdogan had also attracted the displeasure of the European Union by continuing to explore for gas in what is internationally recognized as Cypriot waters. After months of acrimonious exchanges, in December 2020 the EU actually imposed targeted sanctions on Turkey.

Turkeys relations with Egypt had been frozen solid ever since 2013, when Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, who was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, was ousted by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Erdogan, a lifelong adherent of the Brotherhood, expelled Egypts ambassador, and Sisi reciprocated.

Erdogan and his advisers must have realized that a reassessment of tactics was called for, if he was to achieve his strategic objective of extending and stabilizing Turkeys power base across the Middle East. Out of what must have been a root and branch analysis came a plan to address the problem Turkey would embark on a charm offensive, involving an apparent rebooting of relationships with onetime enemies, opponents or unfriendly states, including Israel.

On December 9, 2020, after a gap of two years, Turkey appointed an ambassador to Israel, albeit one with a track record of anti-Israel sentiment. Then, in a press conference on Christmas Day, Erdogan declared that Turkeys intelligence relations with Israel had not stopped; they continue, and that our heart desires that we can move our relations with them to a better point.

Israel treated the developments warily. The media reported that at a meeting held on December 30, then-foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi decided to send quiet feelers to Ankara to assess how much weight to attach to them. It is difficult also to determine whether there is any truth in media rumors that the Turkish intelligence service had been holding secret talks with Israeli officials about normalizing relations.

Then came the Erdogan-Herzog phone conversation. It occurred, commented the Atlantic Council, against a backdrop of a notable decrease in Turkey of the anti-Israel rhetoric usually spouted by the states elites, feeding conspiracy theories and antisemitism. Additionally, the Atlantic Council has noted the recent appearance of many news articles supporting the need for reconciliation. These are important signs, it comments, that create a positive atmosphere, similar to the one that existed around the time of the 2016 normalization deal [following the Mavi Marmara affair].

Official accounts of the presidential conversation report the leaders agreeing on the importance of ties between Israel and Turkey, and the great potential for cooperation in many fields, in particular energy, tourism and technology. They agreed also to maintain contact and ongoing dialogue despite differences of opinion, with the goal of making positive steps toward a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which will also contribute to the improvement of Israeli-Turkish relations.

Is this the renewal of a beautiful Turco-Israeli friendship, or an astute move by Erdogan to further his political ambitions?

It could be both. To reap the potential benefits and sidestep the potential hazards, Israel will need to proceed with caution.

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Turkey and Israel are we to be friends? - opinion - The Jerusalem Post