Foreign Policy Blogs

Turkey’s Challenge

The smoke has hardly cleared from the revolution in Egypt, and the Egyptian people already have a new adversary: Turkey.

Recent reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas may have taken place in Egypt, but few have cheered more loudly for the results than Turkey. And while Egypt has the power, but not quite the will (yet), to open up the Egyptian-Gaza border completely and indefinitely, Turkey is gearing up to once again send a flotilla to aid the people of the Gaza Strip.

Turkey seems to be gunning for another battle with Israel, their long-time ally, turned recent frenemy. The effects of the last flotilla emerging from Turkish ports is still not fully known, and Turkey is giving their blessing to the next round. Is this decision more a swipe at Israel, who will have no choice but to respond, or Egypt. Egypt after all could make such symbolic gestures unnecessary with the simple ending of the Gaza blockade, of which they are still very much implicit.

For Turkey, this is a simple, moral imperative. But what about for Egypt? Whoever emerges in Cairo as the man in charge is going to have to walk a fine line between not being seen as an American and Israeli puppet, while also staying enough in line to keep the dollars flowing in. Ankara can declare that Hamas is a political party and not a terrorist group, it has little effect on their internal politics. It would be just as simple for Cairo to declare the PKK a legitimate state actor; they do not have a Kurdish problem.

But no matter how it’s sliced, Egypt does have a Hamas problem. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a party that until recently (very recently) was banned and repressed in Egypt. A warming of relations between Egypt and Hamas (which the opening of the Egyptian-Gaza border will certainly create) is problematic on several fronts. For the secularists, an empowered Hamas moving freely into Egypt from Gaza creates a political problem with their own internal politics. On the other side, the world is watching closely to see who steps up to fill Mubarak’s aged shoes. A strengthening of ties with Hamas is sure to send the West running. Turkey seems to have resigned themselves to a tempering of relations with the West. While Tahrir Square and twitter might be saying one thing about their relationship with the West, Egypt’s military, who wield tremendous power throughout the country, has not quite yet been so definitive.

Turkey using flotilla’s and press releases to push Egypt into a corner is sure to complicate the already tense situation currently simmering around Gaza and Hamas.

Maybe that is why a large, bipartisan contingent of Congressmen and women have penned a letter that reads like something out of an AIPAC playbook, imploring Turkish PM Edrogan not to allow the flotilla to go on as planned. If only Turkey seemed to care what the United States had to say these days, this letter might actually make a difference.

 

Author

Josh Klemons

Josh Klemons has an MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution with a concentration in the Middle East from American University. He has lived, worked and studied in Israel and done extensive traveling throughout the region. He once played music with Hadag Nachash.

He now works as a digital storyteller/strategist with brands on finding, honing and telling their stories online. Follow him on twitter @jlemonsk and check him out at www.joshklemons.com.