Turkey

Istanbul, Turkey A cheer rings out in a secret command centre. On the screen, another Russian missile launcher has vanished in a cloud of shrapnel and smoke. Working miles behind the front line, a team of Ukrainian drone operators is trying to turn the tide of the war against the Kremlin’s forces. The most effective weapon in their arsenal is the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2. Soaring 160 meters above the battlefield, it delivers death at the push of a button. So fearsome is its reputation that it has inspired a love song that has gone viral in Ukraine and even a video game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Things fall apart. Moscow friends call to say that I have to urgently send my 19-year-old son out of Russia. He is travelling on his Russian passport and a new law says that he is obliged to register for the military draft. Nikita is on a gap year working at a Moscow theatre and he begs not to be sent away. I dismiss the warnings. A day later, a friend’s nanny shows up at our door and hands me an inch-thick packet of high-denomination euros to take out of the country for her employer. The money’s owner is already en route to Israel on a private jet. I overrule my son and open up Skyscanner. Europe, the US and Canada have closed their airspace to Russian planes and the Kremlin has reciprocated. Istanbul is the only European destination still accepting flights from Moscow.

Istanbul, Turkey Wherever you go in Istanbul, Atatürk is rarely far away. Portraits of the man who founded the Turkish Republic hang in the Grand Bazaar and in apartment building foyers. His face is etched on everything from street signs to café mugs. With his vision of Turkey as a liberal, secular state, Atatürk set his nation on the path to western alignment and, ultimately, Nato. When he died in 1938, Winston Churchill said his ‘death is not only a loss for the country, but for Europe is the greatest loss’. Yet in recent years, Turkey’s position as a western ally has all but disintegrated.

Turkey’s twentieth-century experience was very different from that of most European countries. During World War One, the late Ottoman Empire joined forces with Germany, a decision the sultans not only came to regret but that ultimately led to the fall of their monarchy. The Turkish War of Independence followed, touched off by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who transformed the Ottoman Empire into the secular Turkish Republic that still exists today. During World War Two, Turkey remained neutral, because of its previous experiences with joining a German military campaign, but also because it was in dire economic shape. In 1952, Turkey joined NATO, and has since been an ally of the West.

Yerevan, Armenia Armen Sarkissian, the president of Armenia, is incandescent with rage. “Five thousand brave and selfless Armenian soldiers were killed in this war,” he tells me at his office, referring to last year’s conflict with Azerbaijan and Turkey. “There must be accountability for their deaths.” Sarkissian strikes me as the only Armenian politician whose anger comes with a constructive program of national revival. The man once described by Zbigniew Brzezinski as the “Vaclav Havel of the Caucasus” radiates no grievances against foreign powers.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that the country will be heading into its first full lockdown. An early success story, this time last year Turkey was being hailed as a model for its swift actions that ensured the country saw a relatively small death-toll, relative to its size (39,000 people in Turkey have died so far in the course of the pandemic). Now infections are surging: Turkey recorded a total of 61,028 daily cases of Covid-19 and 346 deaths last Tuesday, the highest since the pandemic began. And Erdogan is panicking. There was some hubris in Erdogan’s early declarations of victory against the virus last year.

In the 21st chapter of his magisterial 1948 history of the Second World War, Winston Churchill began with an arresting statement: ‘The Greeks rival the Jews in being the most politically-minded race in the world.’ In his distinctive tongue-in-cheek yet insightful style, he explained:  ‘Wherever there are three Jews there will be found two Prime Ministers and one leader of the Opposition. The same is true of this other famous ancient race, whose stormy and endless struggle for life stretches back to the fountain springs of human thought.’ Seventy-three years after they were written, these racial generalisations may ring dissonant in certain 21st century ears.

Ursula von der Leyen isn't particularly keen on diplomatic protocol. Earlier this year, in a bid to get EU hands on British bound vaccines, the Commission announced its intention to implement a hard Northern Irish border — without bothering to tell either Dublin or Belfast. (Naturally, that fit of international irreverence was blamed on a Brussels subordinate).  Then we had sofagate, which overshadowed what should have been a show of European strength in the face of Turkish President Erdogan. VdL instead decided to take the opportunity to make a fuss about a chair being offered to a man — despite Council President Charles Michel's superiority to her in the EU's order of precedence.

It is the first display of political instability in the Caucasus in 2021. Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia on Thursday announced his unexpected resignation. Although his successor has yet to be confirmed, his replacement will be the country's sixth Prime Minister in eight years. All, including Gakharia, have been members of the same party, Georgian Dream, that has held parliamentary control since 2012. The founder of the party, the formerly reclusive billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, was the first Georgian Dream Prime Minister. He only held the post for a year, claiming he had achieved his political objectives after twelve months. This was treated with a degree of scepticism that was later proved justified.

On Thursday, Turkey Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will land in Brussels to meet with European Union officials to start to ‘build Turkey’s future in Europe’. Next week, Turkey is expected to resume talks with Greece to resolve their maritime disputes after a five-year hiatus. The clash in the eastern Mediterranean between Ankara and Athens has brought the two states to the brink of war and is one of a long list of reasons why Turkey has so far failed to ‘build’ that ‘future in Europe’.