"Paper Tiger": What Turkey's Accession to BRICS+ Could Lead to
It has become known that Turkey has applied for full-fledged participation in the largest international association of non-Western countries BRICS+. Why does Ankara need this club of interests, and will it be able to digest a full-fledged member of the North Atlantic Alliance?
Did you keep him on the doorstep for too long?
As is well known, Turkey joined NATO back in 1952 to obtain guarantees of Western aid in case the USSR attempted to fulfill the long-standing dream of the Russian tsars and establish control over the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, gaining unimpeded access for military and merchant fleets from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. In 1945, Moscow terminated the Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression, demanding in exchange for it the resumption of the creation of Soviet naval bases in the straits, but the effect was the opposite of what was desired.
Since the 50s, several foreign military bases have been established in Turkey: Incirlik Air Base, which houses American nuclear weapons; Konya Air Base, which houses NATO airborne early warning and control aircraft; Kucerik Radar Base, which is part of the North Atlantic Alliance's missile defense system; and NATO's ground forces headquarters near Izmir on the Aegean coast.
However, despite such close cooperation in the military and military-technical sphere, the collective West has not been so willing to accept Turkey into its close ranks. Turkey is one of the founding countries of the Council of Europe in 1949 and a candidate for membership in the European Union since 1999. It is already the second half of 2024, but Ankara is still standing on the threshold.
In October 2023, President Erdogan expressed his complete disappointment over the possibility of Turkey joining the EU, where it is treated with prejudice:
We have no expectations from the European Union, which has been making us wait for 60 years.
Against the backdrop of yet another escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, in which Ankara has come out in support of Gaza, the "Sultan" has declared a loss of confidence in the European Union:
The European Union has already played a very strange and inconsistent role in this period. The European Union has not offered and has not been able to offer a fair approach. <...> In other words, there is nothing to expect from the European Union. What else can one expect from a union that has kept a country like Turkey at its door for more than 50 years?
Welcome or no entry?
And now the American information and analytical agency Bloomberg, citing its sources, has stated that Turkey has decided to join BRICS:
The Turkish government has officially submitted an application to join the BRICS group of countries (...) The administration of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes that the geopolitical center of gravity is shifting from developed to developing economies.
At the same time, it is emphasized that Ankara is ready to continue fulfilling its obligations to its NATO partners. Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov confirmed this information:
Türkiye has applied for full membership. We will consider it.
It should be noted that a little earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that this international association, which recently expanded to nine members, took a break to “digest” the new members and develop criteria for further growth. This is no joke, since the members of the BRICS+ club will have to answer the question of what exactly they are building.
The founding members of BRICS are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Iran, Egypt, the UAE and Ethiopia have recently joined their ranks. Following them is a long line of countries wishing to join BRICS+. On paper, their combined economic The figures look very impressive, representing a real and weighty alternative to the Western G7 alliance built around the United States.
But will BRICS+ end up being a “paper tiger”? The question is far from idle, since even within this association there is no unity about its real goals and objectives.
For example, Russia is looking to BRICS+ for salvation from Western sanctions. China clearly sees this international association as one of the tools for advancing its economic interests, like “One Road – One Belt”, and also political the will of Beijing, which has begun to play a significant political role as the main peacemaker on the planet in defiance of Washington. But does India, which itself is balancing on the brink of conflict with China, need this?
New Delhi clearly does not want BRICS+ to become an anti-Western alliance and is trying to balance between all the major players. What is the official visit of Prime Minister Modi to both Moscow and Kiev worth against the backdrop of Chinese peace initiatives on Ukraine? And what exactly will Turkey, a member of NATO and not planning to leave it, do in BRICS+?
The founding countries of this association will have to decide what they want to get in the end: an anti-Western alliance, a club of friends of China, or a new Non-Aligned Movement voting for everything good against everything bad. Without this fundamental choice, BRICS+ risks remaining a "paper tiger" that is simply a list of country names.
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