NATO member Turkey's bid to join BRICS: Erdogan will find it tough to balance West with East

“Turkey can become a strong, prosperous, prestigious, and effective country if it improves its relations with the East and the West simultaneously,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in early September, as the news reports rolled in that Ankara has formally asked to join the BRICS+ group of emerging-market nations as it seeks to bolster its global influence and forge new ties beyond its traditional Western allies.

Turkey is the first NATO member country to request BRICS membership—a group that signifies ‘rise of the rest’ and seeks an alternative world order challenging the dominance of the US-led West, while NATO is reminiscent of a cold-war alliance system led by the US to counter the containment of communism in Europe. While NATO still searches for relevance, the G7—the ‘group of seven most advanced economies’—has six NATO members, and the only out-member remains Japan, which has been demanding an Asian version of the organisation. Also, the European Union (taken collectively), along with America, constitutes the conceptual formation of what is perceived as West in the Global Order.

Contrastingly, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS), or now BRICS+ (after Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates joined this year, in 2024), is seen as the quest of the East to seek its due position in the Global Order, countering the hegemony of the developed West and its institutions, particularly the Bretton Woods twins—the IMF and the World Bank.

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Another conceptual distinction is the divide between the ‘developed’ Global North and the ‘developing’ Global South. While the G7 members represent the leadership of the Global South, BRICS nations (though Russia is considered a member of the Global North, once a part of the communist ‘second world’) are deemed to be representing the Global South.

Amid all these, there is a region, which Historian Peter Frankopan, in his book, ‘The Silk Roads’, rightly finds the centre of the world, ‘running broadly from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea to the Himalayas’. The very positioning of the states here gives the privilege of choices in foreign policy. Consequently, whether Turkey or India, for that matter, gets that geopolitical advantage, which can be reaped well by any aspirational power, provided it has sound and farsighted leadership.

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Now, consider Turkey; the western part (Thrace) is on the European continent, and the Anatolia peninsula in the east lies in western Asia. While on one hand Turkey wishes for EU membership (though the largest market is adamant of not accepting it as a full member), on the other hand it wants to regain the leadership of the Islamic world on the legacies of the Ottoman Caliphate. This becomes even more contrasting when you see that in recent European parliamentary elections, Right-wing parties held the sway.

Apart from having a cold shoulder from Europe, Turkey apparently conceives Western-led Global Order as detrimental to its geopolitical aspirations and defence sector. Being a NATO nation, it purchased the Russian S400 missile system in 2019. The US, as a result, blocked Turkey’s acquisition of F-35 fighter jets. Though the green light for the purchase of 40 such aircraft was given this year, the US Senate saw considerable opposition to it.

Also, whether on the issue of United Nations reforms or upon the issue of the Israel-Hamas war, Washington and Ankara are not on the same page as should befit two NATO partners. Erdogan is of the opinion that the permanent-five veto holders of the UN Security Council—US, Russia, China, France, and Britain—do not represent the realities of the 21st century. On the Israel-Hamas war issue, the Turkish president calls for an Islamic alliance against America’s most essential ally in West Asia, Israel.

But that does not mean that Turkey has a cosy embrace in the East. Ankara’s lukewarm relationship with New Delhi, particularly due to its stance on the Kashmir issue and its religious mutuality with Pakistan, will certainly play a role in the process. Meanwhile, the Indian foreign ministry’s stance remains that it will go by consensus.

However, apart from this well understandable inhibition, reports suggest Russia “is sending mixed signals” about Turkey’s bid to join BRICS and “is openly sharing developments with the media”, apparently to “unsettle” Ankara’s chances. Erdogan has been toying with this idea since 2018, when Turkey was invited to the BRICS annual summit.

Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov has said: “By the overwhelming majority, the 10 nations decided to ‘take a pause’ with new members to ‘take in’ the new members who have doubled the association.” Apparently, BRICS could create a category called “partner states” separate from the full membership.

The 16th BRICS summit will take place from October 22–24, 2024, in Kazan, Russia, which is currently the chair of the BRICS organisation. So, these ‘mixed signals’ become even more significant in this context.

As per experts, Russia may be seeking to deepen the rift between Turkey and the West, particularly NATO. Or, it might think of scoring some points in the West when negotiations for the Russia-Ukraine war gain momentum.

So, while Turkey’s foreign policy takes an ‘oriental turn’, and the geographical location provides it all the amenities to become a rising middle-power, finding friends in the East requires moving beyond just the legacy of the Ottomans—towards a more comprehensive and realist understanding of the geopolitical reality.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.