Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the United Arab Emirates and the announcement of his upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia (date yet to be set), has met with fierce criticism from Ayhan Sefer Üstün, deputy head of the Future Party led by former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who criticized the Turkish leader and his foreign policies.
Üstün deplored Erdogan's accusations against a number of countries, which led to the deterioration of Ankara's relations with them, before he finally addressed it again to establish new relations with them on the basis of "mutual interests” as he puts it.
The Turkish president has not yet announced the date of his upcoming visit to Riyadh, but he visited the UAE in mid-February, about 3 months after the visit of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed to Ankara on his first visit since 2012.
Üstün, who is also a former parliamentarian for the ruling party and one of the founders of the Future party, said that the party in which he is currently holding the position of vice president, "welcomes the establishment of good relations with all countries, especially those located in the vicinity of Turkey," stressing that the Future Party also desires to maintain good foreign relations.
He added in an interview with Majalla that "when our current party leader Davutoğlu was foreign minister and also when he was exercising his duties as prime minister, he followed a policy of zero problems, but Erdogan used foreign policy as a tool in domestic policy for the past four or five years, which led to the occurrence of inappropriate tensions in Ankara's foreign relations, some of which continue to date."
Üstün added, "Today, we do not object to Turkey establishing good relations with the outside, but we deplore Ankara's accusations against a country and then seeking to establish relations with it as if nothing had happened before."
Here is the full text of the interview that Majalla conducted by phone with the Turkish official residing in the capital of Ankara:
In your opinion, what are the reasons that led to the deterioration of Turkey's foreign relations in the past years?
Ayhan Sefer Üstün (ASÜ): During the period when Davutoğlu, the current head of our party, held the position of foreign minister in the country and also when he was prime minister, Ankara pursued a policy of “zero problems” with neighboring countries and also followed a multi-directional strategy in foreign policy as in relations with South America and African countries.
But after the Turkish president used foreign policy as a tool in domestic politics, this actually led to the deterioration of Ankara's relations with the world, and some of these tensions continue to this day.
But the Turkish president is trying today to reset his country's foreign relations. What is your position on what he did recently?
ASÜ: We, in the Future Party, want Turkey to maintain good relations with all countries, especially with its neighbours. Therefore, we find that the recent rapprochement between Ankara and Abu Dhabi, for example, is of course positive. But we object to the government’s contradictory rhetoric as it did with Abu Dhabi. Ministers who occupy important political positions in the government and even Turkish President Erdogan, openly accused it of being behind the failed coup attempt against his rule, which took place on July 15, 2016.
Then, they establish relations with the UAE now as if nothing had happened, and therefore we have to ask some questions to the Turkish government, including: If the UAE was actually behind that coup attempt, how can there be a rapprochement with it now so easily? Then the other question that comes to mind: How can these accusations be so easily leveled and disrupt our relations with a country, if it was not originally behind the July 15 coup? The government must provide people with adequate answers to these obvious questions.
* What are the reasons that prompted Ankara to review its foreign relations at the present time?
ASÜ: There is a severe economic crisis in Turkey, so the government decided to act more rationally in foreign policy in order to deal with economic problems inside and for this it wants to open a new page in relations with a number of countries such as Israel, Armenia and Arab countries such as the UAE. This comes in addition to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with which, I believe, a rapid rapprochement can be achieved in the coming period.
Is the economic crisis forcing the Turkish president to establish these relations? Did he benefit from some of them?
ASÜ: The Turkish economy suffers from very rare crises. The long-term economic crisis has reached the level of depression as a result of mismanagement and since the current government could not control it, it caused an increase in the three indicators: the exchange rate of the lira against foreign currencies, inflation and interest at the same time.
Consequently, Turkey is facing a storm in the economy and therefore relations with Arab countries, for example, will undoubtedly be beneficial to the local economy. However, the Turkish government has focused on barter transactions with the central banks of Arab countries rather than establishing permanent economic and trade relations in an effort to solve, albeit partially, urgent foreign exchange and borrowing needs. Therefore, it is clear that this approach will not provide sustainable benefits.
So, could the current economic crisis in Turkey lead to early presidential and parliamentary elections?
ASÜ: When we ask if there is a need for early elections in Turkey, everyone says yes. But at a time when the economic crisis has reached its climax, I see that the ruling coalition will not go to elections that it will lose. The government is trying to buy time to fix things and they can't go to an early election without making sure it's in their favour. In the event of a partial improvement, the ruling coalition may decide to hold early elections in October or November of this year.
