At BRICS, Turkey Seeks to Expand Strategic Reach

Turkey’s overtures towards BRICS may be a first for a NATO member, but experts say the move is economically driven and aligns with Ankara’s desire for “strategic autonomy.”

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joins the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan Wednesday at the invitation of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. He will meet with the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

Turkey said last month it had asked to join the group of emerging market nations. If admitted, it would be the first NATO member in a bloc that sees itself as a counterweight to Western powers. 

Most of its members are sharply at odds with the West over the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and in the case of Beijing and Moscow, also its stance on the Ukraine war. 

BRICS is an acronym for its five founding members although the alliance added four nations this year, three from the Middle East – including Iran which the West says is supplying Russia with drones to use against Ukraine. 

But experts said Turkey’s bid to join did not mean it will turn its back on the West, nor on Ukraine, whose top diplomat visited on Monday – let alone NATO. 

“The government is continuing to deepen its ties with countries that are not members of the Western alliance, in line with the strategic autonomy that Turkey is pursuing,” Sinan Ulgen, a researcher at the Carnegie Europe think tank, told AFP.

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“But the initiative is also partly economic: it’s expected to have a positive impact on bilateral economic relations.”

‘A multipolar asymmetric world’

The BRICS nations represent just under half of the world’s population and around a third of global gross domestic product. 

As a “platform,” it does not impose binding economic obligations on members as does the European Union, at whose door Ankara has been knocking since 1999.

Erdogan raised a similar point last month. “Those who say (don’t join BRICS) are the same people who have kept Turkey waiting at the EU’s door for years,” he said. 

“We cannot cut ties with the Turkic and Islamic world just because we are a NATO country: BRICS and ASEAN are structures that offer us opportunities to develop economic cooperation,” he said. 

Ulgen said it was clear the two issues were connected. 

“Turkey would not have taken these steps (towards BRICS) if it had been able to pursue integration talks with Europe, or even with (upgrading) the customs union” which has been stalled since 1996. 

Soli Ozel, an international relations professor at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, said Turkey was responding to an anticipated shift in the global center of gravity.  

“The Turkish government sees that the unquestioned hegemony of the West cannot continue as it is,” he told AFP. 

“And like many other countries, it is trying to position itself to have more of a say if a new order emerges in an asymmetrically multipolar world.” 

At the same time

Ankara wanted to take advantage of the “weakening” of Western influence, he said, “particularly that of the United States, to see whether it can create more room for maneuver.” 

But Turkey remained part of “the security-conscious West and its economy certainly remains part of the European economy,” he added.

For Gokul Sahni, a Singapore-based analyst, Ankara wanted the best of both worlds. 

“Turkey wants to benefit from being West-adjacent, but – knowing it can’t ever become part of the West – it wants to partner closely with the non-Western BRICS” countries, he told AFP. 

And it was a no-risk gamble because joining BRICS “has no security implications,” he said. 

“Turkey will never leave NATO,” said Ozel, but its rapprochement with BRICS reflects “the need for change, the desire to obtain more from emerging regional powers.”