Qatar Crisis: Will Turkey Be the Next?

• 06.16.2017, 13:24
•  Region,  Near East,  World

dailysabah.com

On the background of the scandal over Qatar Turkey is taking steps to intensify its military base in the Arabian monarchy, thus openly expressing its support for Qatar in this situation.

It should be recalled that during previous week a number of Arab countries and Saudi Arabia, in particular, announced the breaking of diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing Doha of sponsoring terrorism.

Here a question rises: why Turkey decided to go to an open confrontation with the Arab states in such conditions, especially with Saudi Arabia, while Ankara has recently been actively developing relations with El Riyad. Thus, in the recent years the policy of Qatar and Turkey coincided on many issues in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt, as the two countries  supported the "Muslim Brothers" and also sponsored the fighting groups against President Assad in Syria. Therefore, the accusations of Qatar for sponsoring terrorism may possibly be voiced against Turkey as well. In such circumstances, Turkey has become one of the most interested parties to resolve the Qatar crisis.

At first glance it seems that anti-Qatar position of Turkey would help it to avoid to make parallels with Qatar's policy in the Middle East - "supporting terrorism", but this is not the case. The probability that more active steps will be taken for the resolution of Qatar crisis, is much smaller when the country is in the full blockade. And the delay in the crisis resolution threatens to put forward similar accusations to Ankara. Perhaps this is the reason why by openly supporting Doha, Turkey, at the same time, calls Saudi Arabia to take a leading role for bringing stability in the region. Otherwise, of course, Ankara would not miss the opportunity to increase its influence in the region by taking the role of mediator, but now Turkey's priority is not to appear in the same situation as Qatar.

As for the activation of the Turkish military base in Qatar, Turkey is trying have guarantees that the Gulf monarchies will not attempt to carry out a coup or other steps causing internal instability in Qatar.