The dynastic reshuffle in Saudi Arabia that took place in the early days of 2015 unleashed a more interventionist Saudi kingdom during the first half of the year. A hostile counter-balancing attitude towards Iran, military intervention in Yemen, increasing engagement in the proxy war in Syria and a less embracing attitude towards president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi's Egypt have been the hallmarks of the first five months of king Salman bin Abdulaziz's reign. On the Turkish and Egyptian side, when Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi paid separate official visits to Saudi Arabia on successive days in February, Erdogan signaled potential reconciliation with Egypt. “Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, this trio, are the most important countries in the region. We all have duties to carry out for the peace, calm and welfare of the region,” he told reporters. Since the summer of 2013, relations between Turkey and Egypt have been frozen due to the toppling of the country's first elected president, Mohammed Morsi, and Turkey's amicable relations with Egypt have been badly affected. The prime minister of Turkey at the time, Erdogan rebuked the Egyptian military and recalled the Turkish ambassador from Cairo. Since Saudi king Abdullah's death, however, it appears that a multi-dimensional equation is in play. While Saudi Arabia, a country very cognisant of the Iranian influence on the Shias in the region, is now actively working to counter-balance Iran under the leadership of king Salman, Turkey is the most influential regional power likely to let this happen. The Saudis, well aware of Iran's influence on the Shias and other non-Sunni Muslims, want to pull Turkey and Egypt into the bloc they want to form. “They want to make use of the vast Sunni population of Turkey, an [early] member of the Council of Europe, a member of NATO and a candidate for European Union [membership],” Murat Yetkin wrote in his daily column in the newspaper Radikal in March. “The Saudis want to attract Egypt and Turkey to this anti-Iran front.” Although it is evident that the new Saudi administration under king Salman's rule has adopted a proactive foreign policy, the circumstances that have brought Turkey into the Sunni alliance should not be understated. Fed-up with the international community's sole focus on the Islamic State (IS) group's gains in Iraq and Syria, and its unwillingness to tackle the regime led by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Turkey has long been campaigning to initiate an assault on al-Assad in the hope of eventual regime change. Pushed into isolation since the beginning of the conflict-turned-civil-war in Syria, Turkey has sought its NATO allies' support to launch attacks on the al-Assad government. However, the international coalition has opted to fight IS instead, leaving Turkey alone in its campaign to eliminate al-Assad. While support for the “moderate” Syrian rebels has gathered momentum over recent months, thanks to the train-and-equip programme coordinated by Turkey, the US, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar, Syria's northern neighbour has also allegedly developed its own independent means of tackling the Syrian regime.
INTERTWINING OBJECTIVES: Under these circumstances, the Sunni bloc that the Saudis have been seeking has come into existence on multiple platforms. The growing reach and influence of Iran, fear of which sparked the Saudi intervention in Yemen, has kept the Saudis busy forging a new alliance in the region with the help of Turkey. Meanwhile, the kingdom has offered Turkey a deeper opportunity for engagement in supporting anti-al-Assad elements on the ground, especially by sending weapons and ammunition to favoured factions in Syria. Some reports claim that the Saudis and the Turks have forged an alliance to go further with direct air strikes against al-Assad's army positions and even planned for the deployment of ground troops. But ahead of the 7 June general elections in Turkey such an operation is far from becoming a reality as public opinion in the country is strongly against any type of military intervention in Syria. According to a survey conducted in late 2014, more than 60 per cent of the Turkish population opposes military intervention in Syria, even as part of a US or NATO-backed coalition force. The Turkish government's anti-al-Assad discourse is not a secret, but its clandestine attempts to support some of the armed factions in Syria have not been able to be kept entirely in the dark. For some time, allegations of Turkey's role in supporting Al-Qaeda affiliates, especially the Al-Nusra Front, have pushed the Turkish government onto the defensive, and it has adamantly denied the allegations. One large story, with considerable domestic repercussions, has been keeping Turkish public opinion busy since January 2015. When trucks belonging to Turkey's National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) were stopped by the local gendarmerie and soldiers revealed their cargo of arms and ammunition, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in Turkey was accused of sending weapons to hardline rebels in Syria. The arrests of Turkish military personnel in the aftermath and the government's attempts to conceal “combustible issues” raised suspicions, but these were diverted into another crack at the Gulenists by the AKP. Led by the government's former ally Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, elements from this loose organisation are allegedly orchestrating dissent against the AKP, according to government sources. On 29 May, the Turkish Cumhuriyet newspaper published leaked documents on the contents of the MIT trucks confirming reports that the cargo was in fact weapons and ammunition destined for Syria.
GIVE AND TAKE: Against the backdrop of increasing cooperation between Turkey and Saudi Arabia and the two countries' intertwining objectives, some analysts have underlined the rationality of this rapprochement as a win-win situation. According to Oytun Orhan, a researcher at the Ankara-based think tank the Centre for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM), the Saudis have finally come to realise that the kingdom can no longer tackle long-standing issues using old methods. “Iran acquired tactical superiority over Saudi Arabia in the region through its proxies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon,” Orhan recently wrote. “[In the campaign against Iran] Yemen was the first testing ground, and beyond financial support the Saudis are now undertaking the role of military leadership.” Realigning Saudi foreign policy is not reserved for its proxy engagement against Iran. The Egyptian government's anti-Muslim Brotherhood efforts are no longer the main driving force behind Saudi support for this country. Observers note that the vision newly appointed crown prince Muhammad bin Nayef and king Salman have for Egypt differs significantly from that of their predecessors. According to Abdullah Aydogan Kalabalik, the Cairo representative of the Ankara-based think tank SETA, the main danger in the region for Saudi Arabia is now Iran and not the Muslim Brotherhood. “The Houthi advance in Yemen culminated [in] the Iranian threat to the Saudis and that was reflected in the changing priorities when treating Egypt,” Kalabalik argues. “The new administration in Saudi Arabia supports the Yemeni offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood against the Iranian-backed Houthis. It is for this reason that the Saudi foreign ministry is already revising its relations with the Turkey-Qatar axis.” Kalabalik further argues that Turkish-Saudi relations will continue to improve, but warns that the kingdom will not form this anti-Shia alliance at the expense of losing a strategic ally like Egypt. In other words, although Turkey is not signaling a potential reconciliation with al-Sisi's Egypt anytime soon, Saudi Arabia will not soften its stance against the Brotherhood.
DANGERS OF AN ANTI-Shia ALLIANCE: Turkey-Egypt reconciliation in the long run could be in prospect, but in the meantime Turkish support for the Saudi operation in Yemen and Saudi backing of Turkey in Syria appear to be the skeleton of the anti-Shia alliance. However, according to some Turkish foreign policy analysts, the anti-Shia bloc could be slippery ground for Turkey. For Al-Monitor columnist Semih Idiz, Erdogan's mixed reactions towards Iran regarding the sectarian strife in the region and his initial support for the Saudis in Yemen is confusing. “It is noteworthy that Erdogan has been trying recently to actively distance himself from any suggestion that he harbours Sunni sympathies against the Shias,” Idiz said. “This approach contrasts with his affront towards Iran not so long ago when he accused Tehran of vying for regional dominance and pledged diplomatic and logistical support to the Saudi-led operations against the Houthi rebels in Yemen that are backed by Iran.” Being a part of this anti-Iran front, according to Radikal's Murat Yetkin, is against the principle of the Turkish state's “peace at home, peace in the world” motto. Yetkin argues that Turkey's long-standing peace with Iran should not be undermined, as the two countries have been sharing an undisputed border since 1639. The formation of a Saudi-Turkish, and potentially Turkish-Egyptian, alliance could be something that Sunni Arabs, Israel and the US want, but its effects on Turkey's relations with Iran could have serious repercussions as Turkey has much more complex and deeper relations with its eastern neighbour compared to the other parties of the alliance. Energy security, trade and regional political stability are just the first of many issues that would be up for consideration. The writer is a political analyst.
