There is so much Saudi Arabia and Turkey could do together, and now could be their moment.Russia’s war in Ukraine is creating odd diplomatic bedfellows.
A new iron curtain could be closing, and now is the time to see who stands where.Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and King Salman on Thursday after arriving for his first visit in five years. He will be hoping to turn the page on a tumultuous period in relations between the two Middle East powers.
Speaking before his departure from Turkey, Erdogan listed a host of areas in which the two countries can cooperate, including health, energy, food security, defense and finance.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia have plenty of historical baggage. The Ottoman Empire left a bitter aftertaste in the kingdom after it was replaced by the Saudi ruling dynasty. And today, Erdogan’s form of political Islam is a potential poison for MBS’ monarchic leadership.
The two countries were at odds ideologically and have long jockeyed for leadership of the Muslim world, but relations hit rock bottom after Turkey blamed Riyadh for the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.But today’s hard realities are burying bygones. Erdogan is short on cash and low in popularity. For MBS, flush in petrodollars, popularity at home is not an issue. But on the world stage, with traditional friends like the US, he is on the outs.
Despite his dwindling political fortunes at home, or perhaps because of them, Erdogan is making himself ever more relevant on the world stage by engaging in high diplomacy. He has been playing the middleman in Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.He and MBS also share concerns in many regional disputes including Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and Hezbollah. There is plenty of scope to exploit common ground to the benefit of both.Erdogan’s sagging economy needs Saudi cash. Promises of business deals and a filler for his dwindling state coffers would be welcome. That sort of help buys the Turkish president more time in power, which MBS understands well.But what MBS could really use is a way to get out of US President Joe Biden’s bad books, and a reliable, non-judgmental, security partner.How Erdogan fits into that will depend on the diplomatic trades the two leaders can make.
Ambiguity is the lifeblood of international relations, and on that front, Erdogan has already played his first card.By dropping his demand for a Turkish trial of the Saudi government agents believed to have murdered Khashoggi — a killing which the CIA assesses was ordered by MBS — Erdogan has effectively laid aside the figurative stick many Western leaders have used to beat MBS.There is plenty that the Turkish leader could bring to the table with MBS. The Saudi crown prince may want Erdogan to weaken his military’s ties to neighboring Qatar.
The two Gulf nations are only recently over a years-long spat that saw Doha invite Turkey to open a military base in Saudi Arabia’s backyard.
Riyadh and Ankara may also want to move to a post-Syria-conflict status that weakens Hezbollah and Iran while stabilizing Lebanon — that probably means keeping Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in power.Such significant and difficult deals can’t be done without MBS and Erdogan balancing each other’s needs around the table.
But MBS’ hedging act goes beyond the Middle East. He is also taking some other high-stakes decisions, not least turning to China for his security needs. According to US intelligence reports, Saudi Arabia is manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with the help of China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Riyadh soon. Any new military cooperation between the two countries would come with a hefty price tag — not in terms of the sticker price, which Riyadh can easily afford, but in terms of the favors China is expected to call for in the future, which could put Saudi on the wrong side of the emerging new global order.The 2011 Arab Spring showed the Saudis that should a revolution come, the US wouldn’t come to the royals’ rescue.
A decade since, the divisiveness of US politics has reinforced the view in Riyadh that American leaders are so consumed by their domestic politics that they can’t fully focus on foreign policy.
Even if a reliable US partner appears, the thinking goes, that person could be gone at the next election.As the US’ reliability in the region diminishes, Erdogan might be able to offer Riyadh some regional security alternatives that could potentially lower tensions with Iran, with which Ankara has cordial ties, and ultimately Yemen.But it is MBS, more than Erdogan, who is at a potential crossroads. Does he give in to bitterness over the US’s handling of the Middle East and continue to get frozen out by Biden, or does he work up a strategy not to land on the wrong side as the new iron curtain comes down?
