During his press conference after meeting with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the Turkish President announced the UAE’s extensive investment in Turkey and said that he had discussed the issue with the UAE side.
Observers of international developments over the past two decades have become accustomed to sudden changes and emotional behaviors in Turkish foreign policy. The latest change came last week as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rallied with the UAE and warmly welcomed Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE national security adviser, to his presidential palace. Although the trip was preceded by several months of bilateral talks and signals of positive interaction between Ankara and Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Tahnoon, Abu Dhabi’s second most powerful figure in charge of international security and affairs, traveled extensively to Turkey. Erdogan was warmly welcomed, as if the two countries had no rivalry or quarrel with each other. In recent months, meetings between the two countries’ intelligence officials have also taken place in Abu Dhabi.
Until a few months ago, the UAE was one of Turkey’s rivals in the region, and following the signing of a compromise agreement with the Zionist regime, Erdogan threatened to recall its ambassador to Ankara. In addition, following the tensions in Qatar’s relations with the four Arab countries that took place five years ago, Turkey made every effort to break the siege of Qatar.
During his press conference after meeting with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the Turkish President announced the UAE’s imminent and imminent investment in Turkey and said that he had discussed the issue with the UAE side. No details have been released on the UAE’s investment volume in Turkey, but Erdogan’s excitement and the UAE’s massive $ 800 billion financial investment indicate that the Turkish economy will face significant foreign investment.
In the context of the economic crisis caused by the outbreak of the Corona virus and in the days when the UAE is witnessing wide disputes with Saudi Arabia, Ankara is trying to attract the country to large investments in its economic projects by promising political and international support to prevent further decline.
Of course, the possible effects of the convergence of Turkey and the UAE on the arrangement of new regional interactions depend on the new depth and motivation of the two sides in the framework of the new coalition. Observers of political issues in this regard propose two scenarios.
First: Turkey and the UAE have shown that their tactical movement map in cross-cutting interactions based on economic and political interests differs from their strategic approaches. This political view can also influence the coalition between Ankara and Abu Dhabi. This means that the convergence of the two sides is within the framework of the tactical and cross-cutting mutual interests of this coalition, and naturally such an alliance cannot have much meaning in the context of time and political fluctuations in the region and the impact of transregional components on the political will of rulers. In addition, in this scenario, bilateral convergence is limited to agreed cases, and differences between us in international interactions and macro-strategies will be silenced.
Second: The second possibility in this area is to change the approach of the Ankara-Abu Dhabi coalition from a tactical channel to a strategic one, which could have the mentioned effects on the arrangement of regional coalitions. Of course, given the atmosphere in the region, the development of political talks between Ankara and Abu Dhabi to this level of relations seems unlikely.
Examining the possible scenarios shows that a close look at the new step of Turkey and the UAE and its effects on the regional space for macro-policies in how to interact with this action should be a smart look and away from excesses and this phenomenon in its real position and volume. This issue can be followed by an appropriate reaction from the Islamic Republic of Iran and the axis of resistance.