Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Dayutoglu predicted his country's relations with Egypt would improve strongly in the wake of Egypt's January 25 Revolution, creating a new “axis of power” in the Middle East, according to the New York Times. In an article published yesterday, NYT reporter Anthony Shadid discusses an interview with Dayutoglu shortly before the minister left for this week's UN conference in New York. “A newly assertive Turkey offered… a vision of a starkly realigned Middle East,” wrote Shadid, explaining the Turkish FM's opinion that Turkey is “right at the center of everything” and his prediction that former allies Syria and Israel would fall further into isolation as a new alliance with Egypt would reform power structures in the region. As U.S. influence in the region seems to wane, Dayutoglu predicts a new axis of power with Egypt. “This will not be an axis against any other country,” Dayutoglu told the NYT. “This will be an axis of democracy, real democracy… an axis of democracy of the two biggest nations in our region, from the north to the south, from the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley in Sudan.” Turkey, writes Shadid, has “recovered from early missteps to offer itself as a model for democratic transition and economic growth at a time when the Middle East and northern Africa have been seized by radical change,” unlike “an anxious Israel, a skeptical Iran and a United States whose regional policy has been criticized as seeming muddled and even contradictory at times.” Dayutoglu told the NYT that Egypt will be the focus of Turkish foreign policy. He predicted an increase in investment – from $1.5 billion now to $5 billion within tow years – and an increase of trade from $3.5 billion now to $5 billion by 2013 and $10 billion by 2015. “For democracy, we need a strong economy,” said Dayutoglu. But not everyone will be pleased with a stronger alliance between Egypt and Turkey, according to Shadid. He writes, “Other countries — Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel — would undoubtedly look upon an Egyptian-Turkish axis with alarm.“ Shadid argues that the entire Middle East is unrecognizable from a year ago, when such relations between Egypt and Turkey would have been unthinkable. “Just a year ago,” writes Shadid, “Egypt's own president, Hosni Mubarak, viewed Turkey, and Mr. Erdogan in particular, with skepticism and suspicion.” Now, however, FM Dayutoglu believes such an alliance would be a force for stability. “For the regional balance of power, we want to have a strong, very strong Egypt,” Davutoglu told the NTY. “Some people may think Egypt and Turkey are competing. No. This is our strategic decision. We want a strong Egypt now.”
