So now the entangled Turkey I have described in my last post is set to fight back the economical crisis. The economic leverage Turkey is looking at is lying as much in politics as in macroeconomics.
Turkey is a country born lonely in the cold of the battlefields. Its ennemies ranged from the western colonial powers to its more immediate neighborhood enraged with the frustration of some missed opportunities (territorial or political gains) and occupied with the necessities of nation-building ("we are not like them"). Many organizations, secret services, political or religious circles thus across time achieved to undermine the return of Turkey to its past strength (cf. GDP per capita numbers in the nearby graph). The idea of an obligated friendship has also long triggered the relations with NATO.
This amounted to various strategy and tactics which nurtured instability in the country (with the best example being kurdish and armenian terrorism) but also across the region. This has been done mostly by encouraging arms race with Greece, keeping hot spots in Cyprus or in Nagorno-Karabakh, setting up Israel as the policing authority of the Near-East.
These achieved holding back the political and economical development of Turkey. Now what has been brought back in order is that where the development of economy was limited by many of these factors, the ranking has changed for first initiating the development of politics and regional power before economy. Papers and news stories may be concerned Turkey is no more a western ally but this lies much in the comfort of the past relation. Turkey is reasserting stronger than ever that its political agenda will no more be set by external motives.
The risk lies in getting off-limit and over-reaching one's capacity. After the local elections, the time of internal diversions on the values of the society will probably pass to address the serious matters lying in the backgound. First comes the restarting of the relations with the EU then the relations with Armenia.
Timing on EU subjects can profit from the friendly presidencies of Sweden and Spain starting from this summer to start closing some chapters and opening new ones. Reform is more necessary than ever to ensure the capitals needed to soften the economic crisis. Armenia is another urgent subject since it is the last track for solving the genocide claims, the US are about to recognize. Having the US setting up the historian committee in charge of studying the facts and bringing its conclusions to the UN would be the best chance for all parties to agree.
And in the end, since this is the year of the conflict/aborted conflict with Iran, the foreign shuttle services will run vividly with however little control over the results. The important here being the ability to jump in a possible vacuum left behind a retracting iranian diplomacy (for adressing the internal stability of Iran).
