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Erdogan wisely using events to boost national power – expert

Politics Materials 17 August 2016 10:34 (UTC +04:00)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is tapping the current events of the region to boost the country’s power, said Mehdi Motaharnia, a political science professor at Tehran Islamic Azad University, in reference to recent boost of intimacy between Iran and Turkey.
Erdogan wisely using events to boost national power – expert

Tehran, Iran, Aug. 16

By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is tapping the current events of the region to boost the country’s power, said Mehdi Motaharnia, a political science professor at Tehran Islamic Azad University, in reference to recent boost of intimacy between Iran and Turkey.

“As a regional and international actor, Turkey faces a kind of paradox of identity in its internal and foreign policies, which are being tapped to meet the requirements of reviving the Ottoman magnificence,” Motaharnia told Trend.

“The traditional identity of politics in Turkey is national-realistic. In other words, nationalistic orientations are based on the revival of Ottomanism within the framework of the Justice and Development Party’s neo-Ottomanist approach, which is now followed in Erdogan’s discourse,” he added.

“As for the realistic side, this Erdoganist orientation well realizes that to take the initial steps aimed at establishing its power in the region, and then on international level, it needs to play with big powers and thereby gain advantages,” the political analyst underlined.

“Therefore, in Erdogan’s recent moves in foreign policy, we see a kind of wavelike move, which, tapping various internal and international events, has started this sinuous game to receive more advantages from other regional and international powers. That is why he once lashes out at the performance of the Israeli president in his country, and once tries to resolve issues between Israel and Turkey.”

Regarding a change in Turkey’s foreign policy in the days following the recent failed coup, Motaharnia said, “Using the recent coup in Turkey, he is approaching the Eastern side, also known as the resistance front in the Syrian crisis, to create grounds for acquiring more advantages from the opposite side, and at the same time to receive its special advantages from the actors on this side of the crisis.”

“So, I believe that Erdogan very sagaciously tries through his wavelike policy to use the current issues of the region and act as a kind of counterweight among all these actors to gain more advantages in order to revive the Turkish power as led by Erdogan himself,” said Motaharnia.

Formerly at odds with Tehran and Moscow over regional issues, including the Syrian crisis, Ankara has recently shown willingness to grow more intimate to the two regional players.

Relations between Moscow and Ankara deteriorated when Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber with two pilots on board. On June 27, Erdogan sent a letter of condolences to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the death of a Su-24 pilot and expressed regret over the incident. After the letter, the two countries’ relations began to improve.

Ankara also spoke appealingly to Tehran in the wake of the failed mid-July coup, with the result that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Turkey on Aug. 12 where the sides exchanged friendly remarks.

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