How dangerous Erdogan is from Joe Biden to the White House

Will it force Joe Biden's entry into the White House to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to rethink his foreign policy? Most authoritarianly than ever within the country, committed to several military fronts abroad, Erdogan has been significantly distanced from Turkey's traditional allies, the United States, the European Union and NATO.

Recent events may force him to change that approach. The European Union is determined to discuss possible sanctions against Turkey on December 10th, following Ankara's unilateral initiative for gas research in the territorial waters of Greece and Cyprus in the Mediterranean.

With President Donald Trump removed from the White House, Erdogan is losing a powerful ally with whom he regularly spoke over the phone, interrupting even between golf sessions. Throughout his mandate, the outgoing US president has shown a kind of admiration for his Turkish counterpart.

Erdogan may not find the same support in Joe Biden. In December 2019, Biden called it an autism and pledged to support the opposition, prompting the ire of pro-government politicians on all sides in Turkey. In an interview for the New York Times, Joe Biden was firm. What I think is that we now have to take a very different attitude towards him, making it clear that we support opposition leaders”. Washington must “encourage” the Turkish opposition “confronts and defeats Erdogan”, he said, underlining that this must be achieved, “not with a coup, but through an election process”.

The Nago-Karabakh conflict, and especially the support the Turkish autocrat gave to his friend Aliev, the president of Azerbaijan, also became the target of Joe Biden's criticism.

While Donald Trump remained silent, the democratic candidate said in a statement, on 13 October, that “the arms supply of Azerbaijan and combat rhetoric encouraging a military solution are irresponsible”. He doubled his remarks on 28 October, criticising the influx of “mercenars” Syrian sent to Azerbaijan by Ankara.

The new American president, who is known for his experience in foreign policy, fruit of the period he headed for two mandates the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee as deputy chairman, may have greater persecution of Turkey.

Turkey's acquisition of Russian air defence systems, which are incompatible with NATO's defence system, reopens the possibility of US sanctions. During his mandate, President Trump suspended Turkey from the construction programme for future American generation F35's secret planes in response to S400 purchase. But Congress may consider even tougher sanctions.

Ankara will also have to count on the judicial process in the US, on Turkey's state bank, Halkbank, which is accused of helping Iran avoid US sanctions.

The smallest sanctions risk having negative consequences on the Turkish economy, in poor condition. After years of relentless growth, local currency has been depreciated, losing a quarter of its value in 2020. There is also a drastic decline in foreign investment, from 16 billion euros in 2007 to 7 billion euros in 2019.

Because she feels secure about her geostrategic role in the Middle East, the conservative Islamist government refuses to believe sanctions could be imposed on her. Erdogan hopes the new US administration will be above all preoccupied with saving relations on behalf of the stability of the Atlantic Alliance. According to Ankara, the presence of the Turkish Army in Syria, Libya and the South Caucasus only strengthens NATO's ability to maintain Russian expansionism.

At the moment, President Erdogan is trying to play the reconciliation role. “

But one factor weighing against improving relations with the new sultan is also the new team Joe Biden is choosing at the top of diplomacy. The new president has chosen Jake Sullivan as national security adviser. He has published, in 2018, on page Politico, an opinion denouncing a Turkey “out of control”, against which he calls for imposing sanctions that would be completely legal. Washington's “goal should not be to confront Ankara simply for the sake of confrontation, or because Erdogan angers it, but to establish the fundamental rules for a constructive commitment”, he wrote.

In July 2020, Antony Blinken, a close adviser to Joe Biden who is taking over the post of secretary of state, was equally clear during a debate at the Hudson Institute, a research institution in Washington. “We certainly want to find a way to have a more positive relationship with Turkey, but this requires that the Turkish government itself want the same thing,” he assured. No good days are expected for the Istanbul sultan.