Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan goes to the BRICS+ session on a two-day BRICS international preachers top kept in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia on June 11, 2024.
Sefa Karacan|Anadolu|Getty Images
Turkey’s demand to sign up with the BRICS partnership is a step viewed as both critical and symbolic as the Eurasian nation of 85 million makes boosting strides in its impact and take advantage of on the international phase.
“Our president has already expressed multiple times that we wish to become a member of BRICS,” an agent for Turkey’s leading AK Party informed reporters previously inSeptember “Our request in this matter is clear, and the process is proceeding within this framework.”
BRICS, which represents Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is a team of arising market nations that look for to grow their financial connections. This year, it got 4 brand-new participants: Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE.
It’s additionally viewed as a weight to Western- led companies like the EU, the G7 and also NATO, although it does not have official framework, enforcement devices, and consistent guidelines and criteria.
For Turkey, a longtime Western ally and NATO participant considering that 1952, the relocate to sign up with BRICS is “in line with its broader geopolitical journey: positioning itself as an independent actor in a multi-polar world and even becoming a pole of power in its own right,” George Dyson, an elderly expert at Control Risks, informed.
“This is not to say that Turkey is turning away from the West entirely,” Dyson included, “but Turkey wants to foster as many trading ties as possible and pursue opportunities unilaterally without being constrained by Western alignment. It is definitely symbolic in that Turkey is demonstrating exactly this — that it is not constrained by its good ties with the West.”
Diversifying partnerships
Despite years of being lined up with Europe and the UNITED STATE, Turkey has actually dealt with constant being rejected from signing up with the EU, which has actually long been an aching area for Ankara.
Ambassador Matthew Bryza, a previous White House and Senior State Department main presently based in Istanbul, claimed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his federal government “seem to be motivated mostly by two factors: A strategic tradition of securing national interests… and a desire to spook the West a bit, both out of emotional spite and as a negotiating tactic to extract concessions.”
has actually spoken to the Turkish presidency’s workplace for remark.
Turkey has in the last couple of years expanded its role in global diplomacy, brokering prisoner swap deals and leading other negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, for instance, while also mending previously strained relations with regional powers like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and most recently, Egypt.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during their joint press conference on September 4, 2023, in Sochi, Russia.
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Ankara also refuses to partake in sanctions against Russia — a stance that irks its Western allies but helps it maintain an independent position as a so-called “middle power,” which it sees as beneficial to its relationships with China and the Global South.
To that end, “any new BRICS member is obviously eager to take advantage of stronger ‘togetherness’ of emerging economies in order to reduce dependency on developed economies, mainly the United States,” said Arda Tunca, an independent economist and consultant based in Turkey.
Standing up to the West?
Tunca noted, however, that Turkey’s unique position in the world is a “delicate discussion point” as the country has “serious political problems with the EU and the United States” despite its western alliances.
Turkey’s governing party, which has run the country for 22 years, is “ideologically closer to the East than the West,” Tunca said. “Turkey wanted to hop on the BRICS train before it was late. It is too early to mention that the BRICS can become an alternative to the West, but the intention is clearly to stand up against the West under the leadership of China.”
Importantly, being part of BRICS allows its members to trade in currencies other than dollars. This aims to reduce dependency on the U.S.-led system and usher in a more multi-polar world. The fact that it’s led by China makes some in the West wary, who see this as a potential win for Beijing.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (not seen) is welcomed by Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of the 11th G20 Leaders’ Summit in Hangzhou, China, on September 3, 2016.
Mehmet Ali Ozcan | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
“I don’t think there is any enforcement of their [BRICS’] decisions, it’s more of a geopolitical thing, sort of a symbolic counter to the G7,” Dyson said. He also noted: “It’s interesting that Iran and UAE are both in it. It’s a bit like the anti-West team.”
Erdogan has spoken of his desire to join BRICS since at least 2018, but the issue was never formalized. In June, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited both China and Russia, the latter for a BRICS+ summit, during which Russian President Vladimir Putin said he “welcomed” Turkey’s interest in joining the bloc.
At the time, the then-U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Jeff Flake, said in an interview that he hoped Turkey wouldn’t join the group, yet included that he did not believe it would adversely affect Turkey’s positioning with the West.
