TURKEY WANTS TO JOIN BRICS
The following story was shared by M.W., E.E., and many of you (with our gratitude). Doubtless those sharing the story had more or less the same reaction I did when they heard about it: Turkey has signaled its desire to join the BRICS bloc of nations:
Turkey Wants to Join the BRICS Bloc of Developing Economies, Official Confirms
Take note of the following:
The Bloomberg news agency reported Monday that Turkey had officially applied to join BRICS several months ago. Asked about the report, Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, said Erdogan has stated “several times” that Turkey aspires to become a member.
“Our request on this issue is clear. This process is ongoing. But there is no concrete development regarding this,” Celik told reporters. "Our president has clearly stated that Turkey wants to take part in all important platforms, including BRICS.”
The BRICS alliance was founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India and China, with South Africa joining in 2010, but has recently undergone a major expansion, and now includes Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has said it's considering joining and Azerbaijan has formally applied.
BRICS has a stated aim to amplify the voice of the Global South. Its founding members have called for a fairer world order and the reform of international institutions like the United Nations, the IMF and the World Bank.
Erdogan, who has been in power for more than two decades, has sought to carve a more independent foreign policy for Turkey and to enhance its global influence. The country is also frustrated by the lack of progress in its membership talks with the European Union.
Last week, Erdogan said Turkey should “simultaneously” develop relations with both the East and the West.
“We don’t have to choose between the European Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” Erdogan said in reference to the regional cooperation organization established by China and Russia. “On the contrary we have to develop our relations with both these and other organizations on a win-win basis.
President Edrogan's statement is revealing of Turkey's intentions, and of how significant the development of Turkish BRICS membership really is. Turkey literally does inhabit both Europe and Asia, and as such, can be viewed as a bridge between the East and West. But I suspect that there may be much more afoot than simply Mr. Erdogan's desire for Turkey to be a "bridge power" playing a classic balance of power game. Consider only the history of the last two decades in the Middle East, and the disastrous fallout from American meddling in the region in the wake of 9/11, whose 23rd anniversary came just this past week. The injection of American power has stirred the Kurds, endangered Assad in Syria, both of which prompted dangerous rumblings of Turkish intervention. The barbaric attacks on Israel, and the barbaric response to them, have further polarized the region and Turkey against the West. The current weakness of American "leadership" is on display for all to see, and what is being seen in Ankara is probably nothing less than alarming.
So the question is really, what kind of bridge does Erdogan want Turkey to be? American "leadership" has been nothing less than a mess for most of the two worlds, Europe and the Near East of Asia, that Turkey inhabits. Across the Black Sea to the north, one European nation, the Ukraine, is paying dearly for the "privilege" of having been used as a proxy in a losing war against Russia. In Europe, Germany is still reeling from the fallout and aftermath of the attack on the Nordstream pipeline, and America's sanctions regime against Russia, a regime that, from a certain European point of view, could equally be conceived as sanctions against Europe in the guise of sanctions against Russia. Prime Minister Meloni's Italy has already reached out to Assad's Syria and attempted to repair the damage to relations with that country.
In such a world, I strongly suspect that Mr. Erdogan's, and Turkey's, game is rather like the diplomatic game that Japan has been so carefully playing ever since the premiership of Shinzo Abe; it is a long game designed ultimately to woo even Europe itself from the American orbit. This will not happen over night, but it will eventually happen as long as America does not change its attitudes and policies. The Neo-Cons are burrowed into the fabric of the American deep state that no short term or even mid-term change of direction seems possible.
And Mr. Erdogan knows this, and is playing accordingly. If Turkey does join the BRICS bloc, then if my assessment of Turkey's intentions are correct, one might then expect Turkey to start playing host to or involved in initiating or attending "informal talks" with the European powers, sporadically at first, then with increasing velocity.
See you on the flip side...
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