The rise and fall of Turkey's foreign opening

Over recent years, Turkey had been perceived as a model of stability and a peace actor. It also became a top touristic destination. Today, it is quickly losing its appeal as its government is accused of dealing with Jihadists. How could the situation become so wrong?

In 2009, when headlines in local newspapers stated that Turkey’s then foreign affairs minister Ahmet Davutoglu had welcomed representatives from the M.I.L.F., youngsters  on social media had a good laugh. Indeed, the acronym, that stands here for Mauro Islamic Liberation Front, an Islamist armed group fighting against the government in the Philippines, is more commonly used on the Internet to designate a sexually appealing middle-aged woman. Looking at today’s political situation though, this piece of news should have warned other audiences too, with a more alarmed eye.

Opening a new page: Turkey as a bridge between the East and the West

Not surrounded by friends at that time

Back in time then, Turkey foreign policy was praised from inside and outside. A NATO founding nation in 1952, Turkey had long been poised by conflictual or frozen relations with most neighboring states, Warsaw pact members and Arab countries, which were not part of the treaty. There were deeper reasons than NATO as well. Syria, Iran and Iraq host sizable Kurdish populations, which were the cause of suspicion from Turkey, for fear of them manipulating its own Kurds and getting destabilized. Armenia, whose population suffered a genocide from the Turkish state’s forebear, the Ottoman Empire, at the beginning of the 20^th century (Turks claim that killings happened both side), and Cyprus, whose territory’s half is occupied by Turkey since 1974 through an internationally non-recognized state, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, had no good reasons to collaborate neither. Even with fellow NATO countries, Greece or Bulgaria (who joined in 1997), resentment was high, partly fueled by past struggles and enmities. From this quagmire, Turkey was now aiming to improve the situation. The win in the 2002 elections of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) had been the perfect occasion to open a new page. Its charismatic Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, insisted he wanted to break with Turkey’s bleak past. 

Internally, he would undertake democratic reforms: he would diminish the army’s role, who was involved in the overthrow by force of several governments in the past decades, and he would work to integrate his country in the European Union. This seemed true for some time. In 2004, the government abolished death penalty. A more cooperative policy was also started to end the guerrilla with the Kurds, give an end to the bloodshed that had taken the lives of hundreds of thousands since the 1980s and invest economically in the country’s South-East, where Kurds are a majority. This reached its peak in 2009, with the launch of the “Kurdish democratic opening” or “solution process”, which officially promoted dialogue and expanding the minority’s rights, to instate a durable peace in the area.

Those were the days

Likewise, externally, Turkey started a policy of “zero problems” with its neighbors, and other surrounding countries.  The objective was to rebuild healthy political connections with them, as well as developing mutual exchanges, starting from trade and tourism. Concretely, the process would usually start with an official state visit, promoting a new image of Turkey, lending a hand to break away from past disputes and work together for a better future.  When, despite internal opposition’s and Azerbaijan ally’s (and Armenia’s foe) outcry, Turkey’s then President Abdullah Gül visited Armenia’s president Serj Sargsyan for a football game in 2008, a very first in the two countries’ history, the hope was high that Turkey’s official motto “Peace at home, peace in the world” was finally becoming a reality. The renewed foreign policy’s results seemed impressive with quick and tangible outcomes. Turkey, who enjoyed many historical connections due to the rule or influence of the Ottoman Empire on three continents during five centuries, had plenty to bring and to receive from all countries around. As an example, after Turkey and Syria signed a free-trade agreement in 2004, trade relations between the two began booming. As Mr Erdogan and Syria’s president Mr Assad frequently appeared hugging and joking in family pictures, exports from Turkey to Syria increased threefold from 2006 to 2010 to reach 1.8 Billion US Dollars yearly.

Number of Russian tourists
in Turkey yearly

Besides, tourism was a major pillar to affirm Turkey’s new status as a new bridge between civilizations. With flight connections to Turkey sprouting from everywhere, tourists from all around the world started flocking to Turkey. Total number of tourists went threefold from 2002 to 2014 to reach 37 millions of foreign tourists visiting the country yearly.

Turkey-Russia relations, which had long remained idle because of the cold war, began to warm again. From 2006 to 2013, number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey in a year was multiplied by 2,3 to reach 4,25 millions, becoming the top visiting country. In 2011, Russia, who imposes harsh visa requirements on Western countries, quickly lifted them for Turkish citizens.

In addition to these achievements, Turkey suddenly appeared as a key regional geopolitical player. With the image of a trusted and moderate actor, it said it could solve the region problems, by bringing enemies to a negotiation table using its soft power.  It would take advantage of its solid relations with Western establishments, while making the world benefit of their better proximity and understanding of neighboring cultures and patterns of thoughts. In 2008, it is in Istanbul that Israel and Syria officials undertook peace talks under Turkey’s patronage. In 2011, Turkey’s crucial role as a middleman was brought forward again, when it hosted globally publicized talks on nuclear deal in Istanbul between Iran and the world’s six major powers, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

The best of both worlds

These successes were completed by a solid economic development with shiny GDP growth rates, culminating at around 9% in 2010 and 2011. Therefore, Turkey was seen as a model. Its supporters were fond of seeing a country, with a population in majority Muslim, ruled by a pious party, yet based on secular institutions, respecting democracy, promoting peace, and enjoying prosperity. In short, Turkey seemed to offer the best of both worlds.  Illustrating this, usual visitors as well as blockbuster movie directors, such as Taken 2’s or James Bond Skyfall’s which were both filmed in the country, were delighted by the perspective of sipping cocktails on a posh Istanbul rooftop or a pristine Antalya beach, while hearing the prayer call from a near Ottoman era mosque. This summarized how Turkey was representing the ideal combination of historical tradition and Oriental civilization, with global opening and Western lifestyle.

Rebuilding regional leadership: towards a "Pax Ottomana"

What analysts failed to comment appropriately however, is that Turkey’s foreign opening did not only consist in attracting tourists and businesses, rebuilding bridges with old foes, as well as promoting international dialogue and peace. Indeed, Turkey also thought it had to increase its leadership more actively outside of its borders, and this had somehow to do with religion. The starting point of this “Neo-Ottomanism” was that Turkey was not having the level of presence it should in its natural sphere of influence, which consisted firstly of the Muslim populations of the former Ottoman Empire. These "brother" populations often represent minorities in other countries, such as Turks in Bulgaria, Bosniaks in the Sandžak area of Serbia, or Caucasian Muslims in the Russian Federation.

In Macedonia, an Ottoman
mosque repaired by Turkey

Following the end of the Ottoman Empire, part of these populations had fled to Turkey, which created lots of ties with these areas. The rest, who remained, found themselves living in more or less hostile states, due to their long lived struggle against the Turkish invaders’ rule. And, as Turkey had limited interactions with these countries for the past decades, it had not  been supporting them in their effort to protect their cultural and religious legacy.

For the government, the belief was that Turkey had stayed out of the game for too long and it was time for a change. Luckily, if the state had broadly remained inactive over the past decades, some private initiatives had already been undertaken. As a matter of fact, Turkey first leveraged from an existing network of more than 2,000 Turkish schools and universities abroad. They were privately run by Fethullah Gülen, an exiled imam in Pennsylvania and once ally of Mr. Erdogan. These had notably thrived in former countries of the Eastern block after the fall of Communism. The Turkish government heavily invested in these schools in order to allow them to expand. In areas with no Turkish consulate, they were even used by the government, who tried to expand diplomatic ties, as de facto diplomatic missions.

But the main arm of the government was the Diyanet, Turkey’s religious affairs department which directly reports to the Government. A huge effort was undertaken to pour millions to restore Ottoman Empire monuments abroad, renovating crumbling mosques, tombs, and bridges, in former Ottoman countries, starting from its once cherished preserve, the Balkans, as well as finance new constructions or infrastructures, to increase Turkey’s presence and visibility. The Diyanet has over the last years helped build over 100 mosques and schools in 25 countries abroad, a recent article from the Economist points out. “Turkey is back”, could finally proudly boast then recently appointed foreign affairs minister, Mr. Davutoglu, in a visit to Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2009.

"Turkey is back", Ahmet Davutoglu, then Turkey foreign affairs Minister, in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2009

Grozny, Chechnya in 1995

Yet, this rhetoric of support was not only about education and cultural clout. Turkey wanted to prove it could display strength as well. In two areas, the Balkans and Chechnya, which Turkey considers belonging to its hinterland, the 1990’s, had been the theater of numerous horror scenes and atrocities, with the state not acting. First, the collapse of ex-Yugoslavia, with wars in Bosnia, from 1992 to 1995 and Kosovo, in 1999, had seen the exile, rape and death of thousands of Muslims. In Bosnia, Sarajevo was kept under siege from 1992 to 1996, the longest in modern war history. And the total amount of killed is estimated up to around 250,000. "The time has come to take revenge on the Turks." is said to have pronounced Ratko Mladic, the Serbian paramilitary officer and war criminal, after entering the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in 1995, before killing 8,000 in a couple of days. More East, in Chechnya, two successive wars of independence of Chechen people against Russia, finally saw the Russian army crushing the separatists. Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, was burnt to ashes. Many in Turkey, due to cultural and religious connections, felt outraged, when the television showed at that time daily images of buildings bombed and civilians killed and perceived Turkey’s attitude as frustrating. Indeed, Turkey had not intervened in any of these conflicts, only to send soldiers to Bosnia and Kosovo after the war in the frame of NATO program.

IHH boss, Bülent Yildirim

To be fair, Turkey still acted passively, closing eyes on several underground traffics held by private actors to take place. Part of the money they collected did not go where it was supposed to though. Mr. Erdogan's mentor, Necmettin Erbakan, a prominent religious politician in the 1990's, was jailed for abusing funds collected for Bosnian children for its personal interest. Nevertheless, the most active and fiercest of these actors were Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) motivated by religious purposes. Officially, these actors supported victims in these war areas through smuggling aids and supplies. Unofficially, some were sending weapons and foreign fighters too. Among them, a Turkish Islamist NGO, IHH, standing for Humanitarian Relief Foundation, notably gained much prominence raising funds at home and abroad to organize such traffics, notoriously in Bosnia and Chechnya.  Several of its members went to fight the Jihad there. Its head, Bülent Yildirim, has been investigated for direct links with Al-Qaida.

Turning a new page after these bloodsheds, Turkey would not stay in the sideline again. The game had changed: it would from now on use its growing power and play an active role in the international scene to step in, if needed, to assist fellow oppressed brotherly people. “Turkey is a natural actor in this region”, Mr. Davutoglu affirmed at a meeting in 2010 in Istanbul.

Proving a leader: raising its tone on Gaza

The problem was that, despite sporadic spot events, not much was happening in the above mentioned places anymore. Bosnia question had been settled by the Dayton agreement in 1995, leaving it in an apathetic yet dormant situation. Kosovo declared independence in 2008. And Chechnya, placed under the fierce rule of Kremlin’s man, Ramzan Kadyrov, in 2007, had been given a partial autonomy and was in a process of reconstruction, flooded with billions US dollars of investments from Russian state. There was no engagement there to side with for Turkey. Nevertheless, Turkey was still more than ever looking for an international cause, where it could prove itself to the eyes of its people and the world as the protector of the victimized.

Thousands celebrating the leave of Mavi Marmara
to Gaza, Istanbul, 2010

Palestinians in the Gaza strip, locked by Israel in a tiny territory and suffering a tough blockade, seemed the ideal topic to address. Gaza had been part of the Ottoman empire from 1516 to 1917, when it was taken by the British, and Mr. Davutoglu’s grandfather had fought there at that time. And its population was Muslim. Turkish people, like many in the world, were sensitive to the fate of the poor Gaza people, under the seemingly oppressive rule of Israel. In 2008, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Erdogan publicly blamed Israel Prime Minister Shimon Peres over Gaza, interrupting a debate with a famous "one minute".

To translate these words into actions, again, Turkey leveraged from the previously existing non-state structures to kick start its policy. In 2010, IHH, the above mentioned Islamist NGO bought from the government-held sea transport company IDO a ship for a value of almost 1 million euros, the Mavi Marmara. It would send it packed with militants and filled with food and medicines help to be delivered to Gaza, and break Israel’s navy blockade. The initiative was supposed to be non-politicized. In fact, it was strongly supported by the Turkish government, which had been known to actively fund IHH. Top officials including MPs were supposed to onboard the flotilla from Istanbul, only to renounce at the last minute after diplomatic pressure from Israel. In any case, a giant Turkish flag hung on the boat made it clear who it was directed by. It was also meant to be international. Indeed, it managed to gather pro-Gaza activists from several countries and diverse political backgrounds and this was conveniently publicized as such in global media. In reality, under IHH leadership, the boats were actually crowded with a majority of hardcore Islamists, as a BBC reportage from 2011 later displayed.

Death in the Med, a BBC reportage, about

Mavi Marmara and IHH, in 2011

During the night of May 31^st, 2010, Israel Special Forces intervened to take control of the ship, acting illegally in international waters, killing 9 on the boat, causing outrage in Turkey and in the entire world. This triggered diplomatic escalation between Ankara and Tel-Aviv. In 2011, Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador when Israel refused to apologize. Anyway, Turkey had won the image battle. Israelis saw agressive Islamist activists trying to attack it, they labelled IHH a terrorist organization and banned their activities on Israel's territory. Yet, global opinion was outraged as they only saw peace activists, guided by generosity and humanitarian reasons, attacked unlawfully. Even domestic opponents to Mr. Erdogan did not disapprove him this time.

For all of it, Turkey was back in the game, it now believed. It had proved to the West an essential actor in the region, as it had a growing soft power it wanted to use carefully. To domestic opinion, it had showed it could also raise tone when needed against injustice. When Mr. Erdogan was reelected in July 2011, in a vibrant speech delivered to hysterical crowds in Ankara, he made his intentions clear when he roared that “as much as Istanbul has, Sarajevo has won tonight as well”, continuing for each Turkish city he thanked, to associate a city of the former Ottoman Empire, Izmir to Beirut, Ankara to Damascus, Diyarbakir to Ramallah, Tripoli, Jeddah, Jerusalem or Gaza.

"As much as Turkey has, the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans have won tonight as well.", Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after reelection, June 2011

Failing to deliver: Rolls-Rolls ambitions with Rover resources

As Turkey saw it, expectations could therefore now be brought even further up. When it comes to protecting persecuted Muslims, Turkey could not only be involved as a regional actor but a global one. In fact, it had already started to test boundaries outside its traditional garden beforehand. In July 2009, when troubles sparked in Xinjiang, also known as East Turkestan, a province of China mostly populated by Uygur people, a majority Muslim ethnic group in the area Mr. Erdogan had called China’s repression an “absolute genocide”. This sparked at the time a major diplomatic crisis with China, which was avoided further worsening by Mr. Davutoglu moderating claims that Turkey would not interfere with China’s internal affairs.

Siding with the Ummah
(Muslim community worldwide)

In 2012, after skirmishes erupted between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas in Burma killing 80, Erdogan’s wife, Emine Erdogan and Ahmet Davutoglu immediately traveled to Western Myanmar to meet Rohingya people, to publicly express their concern. Images of the First Lady crying holding in her hand a crying child were broadcast in all Turkey’s media. Even outside the traditional Ottoman sphere, every Muslim persecuted by another religion would be Turkey’s protégé. As a foreign affairs minister, Mr. Davutoglu created ties with Muslim communities around the globe, the M.I.L.F. was one. He also travelled to Xinjiang in 2010, not a usual region to visit for a foreign diplomat. It seemed yet he was not very selective in the friends in made, as some of his contacts had ties with Jihad.

Meanwhile, the problem was that Turkey, wanting to deliver always more on the international scene, was already struggling to keep pace with its previous involvements. “Little of true practical and final accomplishment has been achieved.” noticed a 2010 US diplomatic cable, released by Wikileaks commentating on Turkey foreign policy. It even despised Turkey for having “Rolls Royce ambitions but Rover resources”, highlighting the huge gap existing between desired objectives and its actual diplomatic know-how and capabilities. Indeed, on all the initiatives it had undertaken, Turkey failed to deliver any. No peace process did properly move on, either it was involving Iran, Syria, Armenia, Lebanon or Cyprus.

Regarding Israel, despite its bravado with on the Gaza issue, it was hard for Turkey to draw any next step. It had kept arguing with Israel about the Mavi Marmara case, with a dispute centered a United Nations report published in 2011, which ought to clarify the story, leaving both parts in fact unsatisfied. Yet, with the United States pressuring the two countries to find diplomatic solutions, and not thinking a minute about having to address Israel’s heavy firepower, it was afraid to escalate the issue any further.

From Arab spring's opportunity to Syrian war

In the years 2010-2012, when protests erupted in several countries in Middle East and North Africa, against local governments, in the so-called « Arab spring », it came first as a surprise to Turkey foreign affairs officials. They had not seen it coming, and were unclear on the answer to give to these events. Indeed, they had spent efforts to develop ties with these countries’ governments, and were scared to lose it all. In Libya, whose leader Muammar Gaddafi had awarded to Mr. Erdogan the 2010 “Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights”, and where Turkish construction firms had thousands of workers working on juicy building contracts, Turkey stayed reluctant to intervene against the Libyan dictator.

However, it soon understood the Arab spring was an opportunity. Among Arab leaders’ rout and Turkey’s successes, analysts and politicians were looking for a political model to replace the ailing secular Arab dictatorships, who had been ruling their countries ruthlessly for decades. They all rushed to identify Turkey as the successful example of a milder and balanced regime, with a rightly dosed combination of Islam, democratic institutions, and foreign opening. They thought the model was working, and it could be exported too. Turkey accepted it had a major role to play in the Arab spring.  After all, Mr. Erdogan saw himself as the voice of the oppressed people against cruel egoist secular elites. “The Arab spring happened in Turkey in 2002, when AK Party came to power” he said in a speech in 2013.

Welcomed like a Sultan in Egypt in 2011

He could fast dream himself as a new Ottoman Sultan, when he was received by hailing crowds during a visit to Egypt in 2011. He was right. With new governments looking at Turkey as a model, he was likely to guide like-minded religious fellows to access to power. AK Party government gave advice to gain and keep the power the same way they had done. Indeed, a 2016 Turkey report by "The Economist" highlights that "in Egypt, Mr Erdogan’s people advised the Muslim Brotherhood during its brief stint in office to replicate such AK party tactics as flooding the supreme court with their own loyalists." More importantly, with Turkey nursing these young governments, it would not only benefit from simple partnerships with these countries as before. It thought it could have more of an overlord-vassal relation, like in the good old Ottoman Empire’s time. It could not have hoped of any better.

All the objectives of Turkey’s foreign policy finally converged in Syria. In March 2011, protests started in Northern Syria. Though some Western diplomats privately expressed concern that the protests did not exactly correspond to masses uprising but rather clashes between rival political sides, global media were quick to comment that the Arab spring had reached the country: Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, was the next dictator on the list. Just like for Libya, Turkey was not willing at first to turn its back to Mr. Assad. After all, business with Syria was booming and its government had good relations with Turkey.  Other countries had yet interest to see Mr. Assad leaving, and they were all Turkey's allies. Gulf countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two countries, whose hundreds billions US dollars of investments are essential for Turkey's foreign investments-dependent economy, were in the frontline. Once Mr. Assad’s friends, they now wanted him out, as he had opposed to vital energy pipelines building projects transiting by his country, so as to give way to a more cooperative government. France, who had tried to renew links with its former colony’s president, but had a history of conflictual relations over Lebanon, and who had now forged a partnership with Qatar under President Nicolas Sarkozy, was also willing to see Mr. Assad leaving. And the US State Department, led by Hillary Clinton, after having initially stated she believed Mr. Assad was "a reformer" was also supportive, for fear of staying too much in the background.

With Alain Juppé: Cheers, mate

The fate of Mr. Assad was sealed when France’s Foreign Affairs minister, Mr. Alain Juppé, travelled to Turkey on November 17,  2011 to meet Mr. Erdogan and Davutoglu. The visit had happened in a tough time in French-Turkish relations, as French parliament was in process to vote a law penalizing the denial of Armenian genocide. But Turkey’s support was needed, and Mr. Juppé was quick to downplay the situation. "This period of history has been difficult for the Turks, and for the Armenians too" he said. In exchange, he promised Turkey to play a leading role in the government transition process. Most significantly, he guaranteed a quick-win, which Mr. Erdogan needed to show results in his foreign policy. The departure of Mr. Assad, like for Gaddafi, would be a question of days, or weeks. Turkey gladly accepted the offer and soon announced it was no longer backing Mr. Assad. A couple of days after Mr. Juppé's visit, on November 22, Mr. Erdogan urged Mr. Assad to quit Syria.  Mr. Erdogan was excited about the perspectives.“I will go to pray in the Umeyyad (Damascus most famous mosque) on Fridays.” he later bragged, imagining himself ruling Syria soon. 

"I will go to pray in the Umeyyad mosque on Fridays", Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 2012

For Turkish government, the war in Syria was the perfect occasion to display their power. After all, they were the only belligerent sharing a border with Syria, therefore proving an essential actor in the conflict. And they had absolute free hands, with a direct access to the territory, and an international backing against the evil Mr. Assad, seen as the terrible leader bombing its own people. "He is like Hitler" assessed the newly appointed US Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013.

Entering war in Syria: partnering with the Jihadists

Turkey’s role was to provide the logistics support, including weapons and supplies, to Syrians fighting the regime in Syria, known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Gulf countries would provide most of the financing for the story. Like it did for Gaza, Turkey went for leveraging the Islamist NGOs, IHH at first, that had been involved in organizing traffics for other conflicts in the past. Gathering their support did not sound forcibly very straightforward. It sounded easy to convince them to help Chechnya, Bosnia or Gaza, as the over simplistic version of these conflicts epitomized the struggle of victim Muslims against another religion's oppressor. In Syria, populated by a majority of Muslims, the situation was different. Yet, the false idea of Syria as an "Alawite state", as Mr. Assad's family is part of this small religious sect connected of Islam, clamping down over its Sunni citizens was brought forward to gather Islamist militias' support. Allegations that the Syrian state was using Alawite militias to kill Sunni Muslims and destroying Sunni mosques were published in high-ranked Turkish newspapers. This view, however, does not reflect the truth. Indeed, there is no reality of a sectarian support for Mr. Assad. Instead, the majority of Syrian army soldiers are Sunni Muslim themselves. And most Syrian Sunnis are fleeing the war to settle in government-controlled areas. Two thirds of Syrians displaced were internally.

Cumhuriyet's frontpage on May, 29, 2015: here are
the weapons Erdogan pretend do not exist

The Islamist NGOs were therefore an essential tool to fight Mr. Assad in Syria. This time, they were directly backed by the Turkish state, and generously financed with money poured by the Gulf allies to support overthrowing Mr. Assad. To have an impact, they acted as they had done in Chechnya and the Balkans, officially delivering only humanitarian aid, but also clandestinely smuggling weapons. To illustrate, IHH claimed to have built in Idlib an oven to produce bread for Syrian civilians, which Russian airplanes bombed suspecting it was used instead as an arm depot The Turkish government would directly provide fighters with weapons on behalf of NGOs, like IHH, which would deliver them in humanitarian trucks to Syria. The MIT, Turkey’s secret services organizations, whose chief Hakan Fidan is part of Mr. Erdogan’s close-knit guard, would be also leveraged to assist. Cumhuriyet newspaper’s  editor Can Dündar is facing life imprisonment for having exposed facts that MIT trucks transported weapons to Syria in the headlines of his newspaper in May 2015. 

But the FSA presence was actually scarce and its support heterogeneous, to make any impact. Just bringing weapons to them was not sufficient to topple Mr. Assad. Yet, Turkey was unlikely to engage its national army. Indeed, since Mr. Erdogan had cracked down on army, jailing dozens of officers in the frame of the Ergenekon trial, the Turkish government had conflictual relation with it, and would not be easy to convince to cooperate in such a risky and high-scale operation. Despite Mr. Erdogan's threats in 2014, that Turkish army could well intervene in Syria, this did not get any real. Moreover, any intervention in the country could have been bad perceived, remembering the trauma of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, in contradiction with the image of a popular uprising against Mr. Assad, that the opposition wanted to promote.

Therefore Turkey rapidly went to agree to bring and train foreign fighters with NGO's support. Through the network, they had developed in its former enterprises in war zones, IHH and its peer organizations had contacts with Islamist groups in Caucasus, the Balkans and Europe, which were ready to send men. These mercenaries would be flown with government support to Turkish towns near the Syrian border. There, they would be trained in state sponsored camps in Turkey before being sent to the frontline in Syria. Seeing these unusual arrivals, inhabitants were early to alarm of many examples of state installations used to train and rest Jihadist fighters. As an illustration, in 2012, in Apaydin, the government blocked political opposition's representatives access to state installations, which were believed to be inhabited by Jihadists. Mr. Davutoglu pretended the camp was "hosting Syria officers fleeing the army". A few kilometers away, public installations at Ceylanpinar, near the Syrian border, were, reports, showed, given to Al-Nosra, an Al-Qaida branch in Syria. Western allies did not pay importance at first. Indeed, they were presented at first as moderate rebels fighting for democracy, on the model on French fighters joining the Spanish civil war against fascism in 1936. “They do a good job”, Laurent Fabius, Mr. Juppé’s successor, put it simply when asked in Marrakech in December 2012 about Al-Nosra.

"Dark guests at Syrian's border: who are they?
 What's going on?" Vatan newspaper asking in 2012

With the blessing of Turkish government, NGO’s continuously brought thousands of foreign fighters from Muslim minorities’ area around the world to Turkey, and then Syria. With the Turkish government closing its eyes and the chaos at the other side, the Syrian-Turkish border was simple to cross. And getting to Turkey was all too easy. Unlike other Jihad destinations, Afghanistan or Pakistan, it was not a suspicious country, being a global touristic hub. And having lifted visas to 78 countries, delivering visas on arrival to 43 other ones, and offering direct and cheap flight connections to most big and many middle cities in the world, there could not be any easier country to reach.  Some of these foreign fighters were directly brought under government's supervision. In a Turkish Airlines flight from Ankara to Hatay airport in 2012, a passenger asking the staff about Chinese Uygur bearded Islamist men being given VIP treatment, claimed he was answered these were directly under Mr. Davutoglu’s protection, Bahar Kimyongur, an independent analyst of the Syrian conflict claims.

Bringing foreign fighters was providing multiple advantages. On the short term, this would bolster the fight against the regime on the frontline. On the longer term, this would offer these men a playground to acquire weaponry skills, they could possibly use later on, would they need to protect against their own oppressors, for example in China, back home. And, placed under Turkey’s auspice, they would constitute a faithful ally and contact point, to support Turkish foreign influence building abroad. Impressively, almost 30,000 foreign fighters from 86 countries have joined the Jihadists' ranks today in Syria, most of them transiting through Turkey. As an example, thousands of Uygur Muslims have reached Turkey from China's Xinjiang, to fight the Jihad in Syria. Likewise, thousands of Russian citizens, mostly from the Caucasus, including Chechnya, are fighting alongside with Islamist groups.

In the meantime, Turkey also took opportunity of the situation to do business. Most these groups are depending on Turkey for supply chain aspects,  which keeps handful profits outside of these flows. Despite the war, the yearly trade volume with Syria estimated by Turkish trade minister is still around 1.6 Billion US dollars, not far from its speak of 2010. It is therefore not surprising that, an emerging force in Syria since 2013, the infamous Islamic State (IS), is said to have strong business connections with Turkey, including the sales of cheap oil and other goods.

Trapped in the Syrian swamp with no way back

Recep Tayyip Erdogan with its close ally
King Salman of Saudi Arabia

Highlighting the cruciality of foreign policy topics for Turkey, Mr. Davutoglu was appointed Prime Minister in 2014. Meanwhile, Syria became a life-or-death issue for the government. First, its allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with whom it had concluded a secret deal with, remained adamant that Mr. Assad should leave. On top of that, Syria became an absolute must-win, when everywhere around, country by country, Mr. Erdogan saw his foreign policy failing, and enemies accumulating. In Egypt, after former dictator Hosni Mubarak’s departure, he had bet on the Muslim brotherhood, developing strong ties to support the arrival to power of Muhammad Morsi. When the Egyptian army ousted Mr. Morsi in 2013, who was later sentenced to death, the new President General Al-Sissi and Erdogan's Turkey cut ties. Relations with Armenia never passed the stage of the official visit, with the border remaining closed. A peace solution was never found in Cyprus.

And the Syrian war caused new enmities. Besides Syria itself, in Iraq, findings over Turkey government’s support to the Islamic State and Turkish army presence in Mosul, led to major anger against Turkey.  Greece and Bulgaria keep blaming Turkey for turning a blind eye on the Syrian refugees flow, being smuggled together with migrants from Northern Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan, by thousands to their territories.

Funerals of Abdulvahit Edelgiriev, a chechen Islamist
killed in Istanbul by Russian secret services in 2015.
The latest of a long series.

But the biggest blow to date has come when Russia turned its back to Turkey , reinstating visas and imposing  heavy trade sanctions, when it shot down in November 2015 a Russian Sukhoi jet, Turkey said had illegally flew over its territory for a couple of seconds. Many saw in the rationale of Russia’s intervention in Syria the will to protect its ally Mr. Assad. If that is true, it is also fair to say that Russia had been concerned much earlier by the national implications for itself of Turkey’s Islamist turn. Indeed, Turkey was already hosting several Chechen exiled war leaders, which are known to want to create an Islamic emirate in the Caucasus and had been under the Russian government’s death list. From 2008 to now, Russia launched several external secret services operations, in Turkey, to eliminate them. At that time, Turkey did not react as it was benefiting too much from the opening of relations with Russia. Yet, when Turkey took it to the next stage, helping thousands of young Islamist fighters from its Caucasus areas to pass by Turkey to fight in Syria, Russian government began to be even more worried. Coming back to Caucasus, trained in a war environment, these fighters would be ready to trigger an internal war, and with Turkey’s support. That is why Russian bombings preferably target Islamist groups in Syria that are directly backed by Turkey, Al-Nosra, Jaysh-al-Islam, or Ahrar-al-Sham, who publishes in a Twitter account in Turkish rather than the Islamic state (IS), leading to media’s claims that Russia is bombing "moderate" rebels rather than IS. To understand the difference, IS, which has its roots in Iraq from former Saddam Hussein's army officers and Jihadists jailed in Syria and liberated by the Syrian government in 2011, is not under Turkey's direct influence but more considered as a third party, which can serve as a tactical partner.

Ankara bombing, March 2016

The issue for Turkey is that unlike initial expectations, Mr. Assad proved more resilient than he seemed. He managed to keep significant support from his population, and the multiplication of Islamist groups, soon turned the conflict in an inextricable mess. Moreover, the chaos in Syria conflict triggered another problem for Turkey, with the Kurdish rebel group, the PYD (Democratic Union Party), likely to create its own independent state, which Turkey is completely against. "I have only one red line, and it is Syria", is said to have told Mr. Erdogan to Sirri Sürreya Önder, a MP of Ankara province, discussing over the Kurdish question. This reinforced further collaboration between Islamist groups in Syria, and Turkey, to fight the PYD, which was made clear to the world when Turkey refused to intervene in the Syrian city of Kobane to protect Kurdish civilians against IS. Furthermore, afraid of the consequences it could have for its own Kurds and feeling a threat for its territorial integrity, Mr. Erdogan dashed all the peace hopes he had promoted since 2002, to reactivate a full-blown internal war which is ongoing against the Kurds in the South East of Turkey. Worse, the Kurdistan Worker's party (PKK), a terrorist organization defending the Kurds' independence from Turkey, is now retaliating organizing deadly terrorist attacks, such as in Ankara in March 2016 killing 37, adding another major security threat.

"I have only one red line, and it is Syria.", Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 2013

Abdelhamid Abbadoud, the November 2015
 Paris terrorist attacks "brain" had fought in Syria
transiting through Turkey

Therefore, the quick-win Turkey was once promised in Syria has definitely proved a utopia, making it unclear what Turkey can now do there.  Worse, to Mr. Erdogan’s ire, foreign powers have started to reassess their position on the conflict. After Russia, Europe started soon to realize Syrian conflict could have implications on its own territory, when it started to spillover there. Indeed, like their peers from Caucasus, hundreds of European Muslims got to Syria through Turkey to join the Jihad. Returning to Europe, they have performed up-to-date a series of massive suicide bombings or mass-shootings against fellow citizens. France and Belgium in particular, were the target of regular terrorist deadly attacks since 2013. Several terrorists had directly been trained in Syria and had passed through Turkey. 

Refugees, another consequence
of the Syrian war

Along with the increasing terrorist threat, an uncontrolled flow of million of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria has been reaching Europe through Turkey, creating fear on uncertainty how to handle the situation. Opinions have therefore started to look at a closer eye to what was happening in Syria, and put pressure on their governments to stop Turkey being "a Jihadist highway". Meanwhile, tourism from everywhere in the world to Turkey is collapsing. Bookings for this summer are down 40% vs. last year, recent estimates say. With terrorist attacks, both from Islamists and PKK, multiplying in Turkey over the last months, visitors are afraid of the growing terrorist threat in the country. Also noticing the dictatorial turn of Mr. Erdogan (Turkey is now the 149^th country in the Global Press Freedom index), the United States of America started expressing growing concern over Turkey too. 

Jihad, tourism, these are not words that go together well

This leaves Turkey in a bleak situation. It once dreamed itself as a multipolar actor, who would be trusted by the entire world, and take opportunity of its position to defend the oppressed in the Muslim world.  This second pillar of its foreign policy dangerously drifted in the direction of welcoming, supporting and collaborating with Al-Qaeda and related Jihadist groups. That proves highly incompatible with being a regional peacemaker and a global touristic hub.

As a result of its foreign opening, Turkey is actually now left with more enemies than it ever had. Its allies are at best suspicious, and it is haunted by a spreading terrorist threat it cannot control. With its only remaining close friends, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and its support to jihadists, Turkey government now looks more similar to the the Taliban, than to any Western government it once hoped to compete with in term of foreign policy. But the scariest maybe, is still how the world realized it so late.