Mideast: Tensions Stoke Between Turkey and the UAE & Wider Geopolitical Implications
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A recent deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates that saw the two establishing formal diplomatic ties has angered certain countries in the region, notably Turkey. Turkey and the UAE have had a complicated history of relations, and it stands to reason that diplomatic tension between the two will escalate.
Israel was set to annex key Palestinian territories just over a month ago before the United Arab Emirates conducted a deal with the country that saw the two establish full ties with each other. The deal has halted Israel attempt to annex the West Bank and other territories, and will see the two countries cooperate economically in explicit terms, rather than more under the table deals that it has alongside other Gulf countries conducted with Israel in the past. With the UAE normalizing ties with Israel, more Gulf countries will soon follow suit. But many officials in the region, mostly from the Palestinian Territories themselves and from Iran, have decried the warming relations between the two. Perhaps not as loudly as Turkey, however.
The Turkish president shortly after ties were normalized between Israel and the UAE remarked that the deal was not to be stomached and that Turkey would retaliate by suspending their own relations with the Emirates over the deal. Severing ties with the Gulf country, perhaps to signal its defiance towards conciliation with the Israeli state. In recent days Turkey has gone further than just severing diplomatic ties, threatening to shoot down UAE aircraft if they fly over areas of Turkish sovereignty and attempting to arrest a Fatah leader currently living in the Emirates. What’s more, Turkey is using its relationship with UAE as yet another attempt at signaling its ambitious stance in the Middle East, which they perceive is threatened by UAE and other Gulf Countries interference.
Back in 2017, the UAE Ambassador to the United States iterated his suspicions of Turkey. Like the UAE’s neighbor, Qatar, Turkey has been a supporter of the controversial Muslim Brotherhood, which the Emirates have vehemently decried. Turkey’s ties to the organization have stoked tensions with the UAE, similar to its relationship with Qatar, highlighting a difference not just in ideology, but the giving of support or disapproval through material resources or diplomatic relations, inflaming tensions between the two in a very real way.
Turkey’s Geopolitical Strategy in the Middle East
Under President Erdogan’s rule, Turkey has gone through a radical change of foreign relations strategy, pivoting from a more moderate stance on Israel and the role of Islam in the state, to an aggressive Neo-Ottoman/Pan-Islamist ideology that dictates its relationship with the Middle East and peripheral states.
Recently there have been talk of a Turkish ideal of the “Blue Homeland”, a expression for Turkish claims in the eastern Mediterranean, part of a wider network of influence that Turkey has built in recent years for its own economic and geopolitical ambitions. Besides Cyprus and Turkey’s tense relationship with the Greece, Turkey has interfered in the Caucasus, Libya, Syria, and most recently Iraq. Its relationship with the UAE is contextualized by Turkey’s involvement in other countries in the region.
Turkey and Iran
As mentioned above, one prominent country that like Turkey has decried the UAE’s normalizing relations with Israel, has been Iran. Iran has had in the modern past a complicated history with Turkey. The two are suspicious allies of each other and both compete for regional dominance in the Middle East, over other rivals like Saudi Arabia. More recently, ambitions have seemed to converge between the two. Both Turkey and Iran are on the same side in many conflicts in the region. Iran has supported a Pro-Turkish regime in Libya, while Turkey has affirmed with Iran their support of the Syrian state. As long as interests converge, Turkey and Iran present a formidable bloc, both in terms of geopolitics and economic strategy, in the Middle East that proves an obstacle to the UAE and other Gulf Countries who are increasingly willing to cooperate with past (perceived) adversaries to grow their economy.
What Will Relations Between Turkey and the UAE look like in the Future?
It remains to be seen if tensions will come to ahead in any meaningful way. Turkey’s involvement with other countries in the region makes its efforts to antagonize the UAE a peripheral goal as it extends its influence beyond its borders into the Balkans, Caucuses, and within the Middle East. With that said, Turkey will remain opposed to the UAE’s geopolitical strategy and economic ambitions in the Middle East and so long as the UAE remains a ally of Israel, a state Turkey has also had a complicated and increasingly antagonistic history with in the past, an obstacle to any sort of reproach between the two remains. The Emirates deal with Israel remains a symbol for Turkey and other countries like it, that the Gulf is a threat to their geopolitical ambitions and the ideological underpinnings between the two have diverged to such an extent that diplomatic relations between the two may not be easily mended.
So long as Turkey pursues its ambitious foreign policy goals and so long as the UAE remains an opponent to such a process, the two will have an antagonistic relationship. While the UAE moves closer to normalizing ties with Israel and pursuing relationships outside of its comfort zone, Turkey is consolidating power and leverage in the Middle East and peripheral regions at a rapid pace. Turkish relationships with the UAE may be a yardstick to measure just how far Turkish ambitions have led it to making itself an assertive power in the region capable and willing to threaten other formidable states. Because as long as Turkey pursues such an aggressive foreign policy agenda, it will have obstacles like the UAE in its way.
