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DUBAI — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan served as Turkey’s leader for the third time last month, continue his power for 20 years At the same time, economically and politically, it began to repair relations with the Gulf countries, especially the United Arab Emirates.
In March, Turkey, the UAE’s sixth largest trading partner, signed a $40 billion trade deal The ratification came more than five years after Erdogan was re-elected on May 31. According to experts, this bilateral economic agreement is only a manifestation of the friendship between the leaders of the two countries.
Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati analyst and professor of political science, said the agreement reflected the foreign policy approach of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ), which values human relationships as a way of building trust.
“I think they (MBZ and Erdogan) are very satisfied in the various meetings they have had. It is reported that Sheikh Mohammad is expected to go to Ankara probably in the next week or so. … This is just to show you It shows how much importance President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed places on friendship and all strategic aspects of the relationship,” the Emirati professor told Al-Monitor.
MBZ took to Twitter to congratulate Erdogan ahead of the official announcement of the election results on May 28. But that personal rapport wasn’t always there between the two.
Relations between Turkey and the UAE, as well as other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, suffered between 2010 and 2020, when the Arab Spring began and later the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi after. In 2016, media outlets close to Erdogan accused the UAE of funding perpetrators of an attempted coup against the Turkish strongman.
Under Erdogan, and following the Arab Spring in 2011, Turkey was seen as a major supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria. The group faced backlash and outlawed in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, was overthrown in Egypt in 2013 and has been ostracized by the Tunisian government since 2022. In Syria, both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi now accept the country’s ruler, Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey does not.
Ankara also sided with Qatar during the 2017 Gulf dispute, when Doha was blocked by its neighbors after they criticized its ties to the Islamist group. The blockade ends in 2021.
Abdullah explained that the UAE-Turkey relationship has gone through several stages, the culmination of which occurred just before the Arab Spring, when Turkey was one of the UAE’s best trading partners. The two still maintain their relationship at the lowest point.
“Even in times of political competition between the two countries, the economies of both countries [the relationship] Strong and strong,” Abdullah said. After the easing of tensions with Qatar in 2021, UAE launches $10 billion investment fund in Türkiye.
Immediately after two major earthquakes this year that devastated Turks and their economy, the UAE pledged $100 million in disaster relief aid to Turkey and Syria, also hard hit by the quakes.
“The relationship between the UAE and Turkey has changed dramatically, almost a 180-degree turn in the past two years; they have gone from rivals to friends,” Abdullah said. “Now we see that the two countries are more aligned on political issues.”
“The new Turkey is increasingly dropping support for the Muslim Brotherhood,” Abdullah said.
Apart from the UAE’s push to cooperate rather than confront former political rivals such as Israel, Iran, Qatar since the 2020 Abraham Accords, the shift is moderating the growth of Abu Dhabi’s economic relationship with Ankara, the expert said.
According to Reuters, the bilateral trade volume between the two countries will reach US$18.9 billion in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 40%.
Opportunities are ripe for continued growth, Abdullah said, picking more Turkish construction companies working in the UAE, using the country as a re-export hub for its connected global ports, and partnering with the UAE to expand its aviation industry.
Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, said that while the competition for influence in Africa continues, the UAE is transitioning from an active opposition to Turkish foreign policy to an active investor.
“The UAE considers turkish economy As a distressed asset, it can be invested cheaply now and earn more money from this investment later,” he told Al-Monitor.
The potential is there, he added. With a current population of about 85 million, Turkey’s growing population, large industrial capacity and generally well-educated population could open up emerging technology industries such as agriculture, clean energy and military technology.
Turkey’s central location with easy access to Europe, Africa and Asia presents an attractive opportunity for the UAE to leverage the country as a trade and tourism hub and invest in commercial real estate.
However, growth may be difficult as Turkey faces enormous economic difficulties under Erdogan, with the central bank’s net foreign exchange reserves falling below zero this year for the first time since 2002 and year-on-year inflation in May at 39.59. % , according to government data.
Erdogan so far appears to be changing his ways since he won the election for the third time unorthodox economic policy And take a more traditional approach to correcting his financial credibility.
On Friday, he hired a U.S.-based banking executive Hafiz Geirkan As the country’s new central bank governor.This is following the appointment Mohammad Simsek as the new finance minister. Simsek was fired in 2018 for opposing Erdogan’s policies.
Heras said the moves represented a practical aspect of Erdogan’s policy to attract foreign investment but would not abandon his idea of expanding Turkish power abroad in exchange for foreign direct investment at home, adding that it was not in line with the His approach to policy is characteristic.
“The biggest possible improvement in UAE-Turkey relations in the near future is an agreement between Ankara and Abu Dhabi that each has spheres of influence in the wider Middle East that the other will not contest,” Heras said.
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