Erdogan May Seek EU Money Even as He Trades Insults With Macron
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to hit up the leaders of France, Germany and the U.K. for money next week
(Bloomberg) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could hit up the leaders of France, Germany and the U.K. for money next week, when he sees them on the sidelines of a 70th anniversary celebration for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The four leaders will meet in the U.K. on Dec. 3, according to the office of French President Emmanuel Macron, and there will be plenty to talk about -- including the money Erdogan needs for an increasingly expensive Syria policy.
Turkey is at odds with its NATO allies over its recent military offensive in northeastern Syria, and its purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems. There’s tit-for-tat over how the alliance should treat Kurdish fighters who operated alongside the West against Islamic State, but are considered terrorists by Turkey.
In the latest bout of megaphone diplomacy, Macron said on Thursday that Turkey could not expect solidarity from its allies over a military campaign it launched as a “fait accompli.”
On Friday, Erdogan struck back. Echoing an earlier comment by Macron that NATO was becoming brain dead, the Turkish leader said he should “first check his own brain death.” That prompted Paris to summon Turkey’s ambassador; "this is not a statement, these are insults,” a French official said.
As awkward as Tuesday’s meeting is likely to be, officials from all sides say they want it. For one thing, Erdogan and his European counterparts remain deeply interdependent.
The Turkish leader wants to build new cities in the 32-kilometer (20-mile) deep buffer zone his troops have carved out in Syria since crossing the border in October, but he lacks the money. The construction, costing $27 billion, would house about 1 million of the 3.6 million registered Syrian refugees who now live in Turkey.
Plans for the buffer zone have been under discussion with the Europeans at a working level for weeks, but Erdogan is unlikely to ask the so-called EU-3 directly when they meet to fund the construction, according to two people familiar with the matter. Instead, they said, he’ll discuss expanding an existing European Union aid package linked to Syria.
Led by Germany, the EU has committed to provide $6 billion to help with Turkey’s Syrian refugee burden since 2016. In return, Erdogan has stemmed the flow of asylum seekers into the EU.
Funding or even endorsing Erdogan’s plans in the buffer zone itself would be politically toxic for Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. All three opposed Erdogan’s military operation in Syria.
There’s also a risk Ankara might use the resettlement policy to re-engineer northern Syria’s demographics, despite pledges to the contrary. The area is predominantly populated by ethnic Kurds, many of whom fled the area before the arrival of the Turkish troops and the Syrian Arab militias that fought with them. Ethnic Arabs and unaffiliated Kurds have said they were previously evicted, in turn, by the Kurdish YPG.
Turkish officials say 350,000 of the Syrian refugees it hosts are from either Kurdish or other minorities. The remainder are Sunni Arabs.
“The president, the Chancellor and Boris Johnson want an EU-3 meeting, something Turkey has agreed to,” U.K. Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said in an interview. “We’ve always made clear we will not support any return of refugees that can’t be done in a way which is voluntary and nor will we recognize any attempts to change northern Syria demographically.”
Dismissing Erdogan’s plea for funds outright would carry risks though for the Europeans. He’s threatened before to send refugees onward to the EU, potentially reigniting the wave of populist and anti-immigrant sentiment that swept the bloc when more than 1 million arrived, mainly in Germany, in 2015.
Turkey also holds several hundred Islamic State fighters and their families from Europe, a number that could increase. Next week’s discussion will look for a way to return jihadists as the numbers grow, according to the people with knowledge of Turkey’s plans. Turkish officials say they plan to send 11 suspected such militants to France in the coming days.
More broadly, Western NATO allies are as keen to keep Turkey inside their strategic tent as Turkey is to retain the security guarantees that it offers.
An official from Macron’s office said in a pre-summit briefing that the EU-3 meeting with Erdogan would address “the need to clarify things with Turkey.” There was no immediate comment from Merkel’s office on the planned discussion.
NATO’s ‘Dysfunction’
Macron’s “brain death” comment came in an interview with The Economist magazine earlier this month, in which he cited Turkey’s Syria operation as an example of NATO’s dysfunction. He also questioned whether European members would be willing to go to Turkey’s aid, should it be attacked in retaliation for its Syria offensive.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu pushed back Thursday on another reported NATO-Turkey split, in which his country was said to be blocking deterrent operations in Eastern Europe until the alliance publicly adopts Turkey’s view of the Kurdish YPG as a threat. He said Turkey did not oppose NATO deployments in the Baltics, but the alliance must be more sensitive to Turkish needs.
Erdogan’s plan to repopulate his buffer zone is likely to remain a thorny issue for Europe and NATO as a whole. In a Nov. 14 briefing, U.S. Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey said he had warned repeatedly against the risk of “ethnic cleansing” in the zone.
“Here is what we got from the Turks: One, any movement of people back into northeastern Syria will be a return of people from the area, and it will be done in conjunction with the UNHCR and under the UNHCR rules of safe, dignified, and voluntary,” Jeffrey said, referring to the United Nations refugee agency.
The Turkish leader said this week that he plans to propose a wider donor conference for Syria’s reconstruction at the NATO summit, according to Turkish news reports. Erdogan said he had already broached that idea with Qatar, plus the presidents of the U.S. and Russia.
--With assistance from Helene Fouquet, Glen Carey, Patrick Donahue and Geraldine Amiel.
To contact the reporters on this story: Marc Champion in London at mchampion7@bloomberg.net;Onur Ant in Istanbul at oant@bloomberg.net;Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Karl Maier
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