Turkey on the rise in Eurasia

Jose Luis Chalhoub*     Political Scientist

Turkey is definitely gaining a greater and more important position in all the eurasian region, asserting its influence given its weight within the most important geopolitical zone of the planet. In recent years we have seen a more independent and autonomous turkey away from nato and western interference, and designing its very own foreign policy. In this sense and specifically since the beginning of  Recep Tayyip Erdogan government, turkey has been aligning itself with countries like russia, supporting iran's position on different subjects, siding with blocs like the BRICS, and the more so since turkey's highest role as a transit country of all the energy that flows from the Caspian Sea, being one example of this the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan), which has been one strategic leverage tool of the turkish government vis a vis the European Union and Washington.

Besides, Turkey has been showing a sustained economic growth on the last decade, considered one of the most prominent emerging market, and demographically and religiously this country has a lot to show in the coming years. But of course the country of Ataturk faces many challenges being them the intentions of the regional powers like Russia, Iran, India, China which also have intentions in the zone rich on energy resources besides the most important fact of the future of Washington/EU/Turkey relations, adding to that the current situation between Israel and Turkey because of energy matters on Cyprus, adding to that the long standing issues concerning Turkey on the armenian weight on capitol hill and the white house regarding turkey and the future of the turkish/greek relationship in the coming years. Russia is becoming an important ally of turkey based on energy supplies, but time will tell if this could be a true alliance given russia's own intention in the region especially in the former central asian republics which in part has turkish ethnic binds to Ankara. So after this general landscape and overview one can ask if Turkey is really going for its own role, or could strenghten russia ties within the organization of shanghai, or maybe the true intentions is to deploy a macro geopolitical strategy a la Ottomana in Eurasia? Well this highly will depend on the delicate issue of the military weight in the decision making in turkish politics in the short and medium term. Time will tell definitely.

*Caracas, Venezuela