/ world today news/ In the long term, there will be no redistribution of the spheres of influence of Russia and Turkey in the Balkans. But on the other hand, the European Union will take advantage of the opportunity and, with the help of energy blackmail, will suck all the countries of the region into its own sphere of influence.
As part of a short Balkan tour, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Serbia on September 6 and 7. In Belgrade, he spoke with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic. Serboljub Peovic, an employee of the Institute for European Studies (Belgrade), talks about the reasons and results of Erdogan’s visit to Serbia.
What topic do you think was the focus of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s talks with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic? According to Serbian media, the two leaders also met behind closed doors, but from what the public was able to hear during their joint press conference, it appears that the focus was still on economic issues. Do you agree with this assessment?
The main focus of the Turkish leader’s last visit to Serbia was economic issues. Over the past ten years, Turkey has continuously increased its trade with the countries of the so-called Western Balkans.
Trade with Serbia, Turkey’s main trading partner in the region, has increased from €300 million to €1.77 billion over the past ten years. Therefore, Ankara is interested in this growth continuing, contrary to what has been happening with the Turkish lira since 2017. As we can see, this does not affect turnover much.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Aleksandar Vucic, tech.gov.tr
As for the political component, here Turkey acts as a kind of regional power. First of all, I have in mind the issues of the internal stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For several years, Erdogan has been conducting personal diplomacy with the members of the Presidium of BiH and is a kind of guarantor of stability.
Therefore, the leader of the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, after a meeting with Erdogan in Sarajevo, stated that Turkey, unlike the West, does not set any conditions on the countries that they must fulfill in order for it to mediate in search of solutions, important for maintaining stability in BiH.
For Serbia, this political component is not so relevant today. Turkey played an important role in maintaining stability in the region of Raška (Southern Serbia – REGNUM Agency) about ten years ago, during a dispute between local leaders of the Muslim community.
There are no such questions today. Therefore, in Serbia, the emphasis was always on the economy. Also, personal friendship and cooperation with Balkan leaders is extremely important for Recep Erdogan’s diplomacy. In 2021, Erdogan was at the wedding of the daughter of the Bosnian leader in BiH, Bakir Izetbegovic. In 2016, Bakir Izetbegović and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama were guests at the wedding of Erdogan’s daughter.
Erdogan’s recent Balkan tour was organized, among other things, to preserve Turkey’s role as a regional player on the one hand, and its president as an outstanding regional leader on the other.
According to Aleksandar Vucic, during his talks with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, much attention was paid to energy issues. What role do you see for Turkey in ensuring the energy stability of the Balkans in general and Serbia in particular? The branch of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, which passes through Serbia, has been completed. Can Turkey, as an intermediary in supplying the region with Russian gas, play on Russia’s side?
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, tech.gov.tr
Whether this circumstance will have a positive effect on Russia depends primarily on the European Union. Since Serbia does not have a common land border with either Turkey or Russia, the transfer of gas depends on the will of the EU. Vucic also spoke about this earlier. But Turkey definitely has the role of mediator and does not intend to give it up.
Turkey itself is a large importer of Russian gas – more than half of the gas consumed by Turkey comes from Russia. Turkey is interested in continuing the transit of gas through “Turkish Stream” – this strengthens its importance in the region, but ultimately everything depends on the further behavior of the European Union.
Turkey has all the prerequisites to become a kind of “leader” in the energy exchange in the region, since Russian, Azerbaijani and Iranian energy carriers pass through its territory.
Moreover, in the context of the events on the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR, Turkey occupies a special diplomatic position, and this is also important in this case.
After a meeting with his Turkish counterpart, the Serbian president said that Serbia is extremely interested in the purchase of Turkish Bayraktar drones and that it is ready to spend almost ten times more on this contract than originally planned. Why are these drones so important to Serbia?
It seems to me that the byraktars are important for Serbia above all in a broad diplomatic sense. It should be understood that these drones are not just a type of weapon. I have already mentioned the wedding of Erdogan’s daughter in 2016. She married Selcuk Bayraktar, the current owner of the Bayraktar company. I think this question should be considered in this context as well.
Seljuk Bayraktar, prezident.az
Bayraktar UAVs are undoubtedly in high demand in the military field. But it is important for Serbia, above all, to establish good relations with Turkey.
It also seems to me that President Vucic is trying to take advantage of the fact that in recent years Turkey’s relations with the separatist regime in Pristina have had certain problems for two reasons. The first is the support that the Kosovo Albanians gave to the Gülen movement. The second is that separatists in Kosovo, like Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, are torn between sympathy for Turkey as a regional player and loyalty to NATO.
Serbia is trying to bind Turkey more strongly with itself. But despite all this, in the foreseeable future I do not expect the emergence of regional conflicts with the participation of Serbia, in which it will use Turkish drones.
To what extent can Serbia, in a political sense, rely on Turkey, given that Ankara is still on the side of the Kosovo Albanians on the main issue for Belgrade – Kosovo?
This is quite a difficult question. As the main characteristic of Turkish diplomacy in the last 20 years, I would single out pragmatism. Turkey changes its diplomatic course depending on its real political needs.
Undoubtedly, Turkey was among the first to recognize the separatist Kosovo, it advocated for Bosnia and Herzegovina to receive the so-called road map to join NATO in 2010, until 2012-2013. Turkey lobbied third countries to recognize the separatist regime in Pristina .
But Turkey understands that Serbia is its main foreign economic partner in the Western Balkans, and so over the last ten years it has tried to weight its rhetoric towards the so-called independence of Kosovo.
There are disagreements between Serbia and Turkey on some key issues. But the regime in Ankara tries to pursue a pragmatic foreign policy, changing its course according to needs. I would not say that Belgrade and Ankara can reach a complete agreement in foreign policy, but there is room for cooperation between them.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vucic
What is Turkey’s strategic objective in the Balkans, other than the abstract “enhancement of influence”? What is Turkey’s goal specifically in Serbia?
Here it is necessary to return from the sphere of politics to the sphere of economics. It seems to me that the main goal of Turkey is the development of trade relations. Turkey has a surplus in foreign trade with all Balkan countries, but this trade turnover is relatively small.
Ankara has sought to “capitalize” on the legacy of the Ottoman Empire and its authority among the region’s Muslim population to increase economic influence. But, as we can see, this did not give very good results. Germany is still the main economic partner of all Balkan countries.
Turkey is trying through various humanitarian organizations, such as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) or Diyanet (Turkish State Institution for Religious Affairs – REGNUM news agency), to tie the local Muslims more strongly to itself.
In some countries it is doing better, in others worse. In Bulgaria, the Turkish influence is much more pronounced than in BiH, since in this country the ethnic Turkish factor is much stronger. BiH has its own tradition, which the country does not want to give up just like that.
Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, Vikicizer
As a regional player that is both a member of NATO and a dialogue partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Turkey would like the Balkan countries to be politically more tied to it than to its Western allies.
Ankara also tried to increase its political influence through the institution of fraternal municipalities – in Turkey there is a state body that coordinates the cooperation between fraternal municipalities in Turkey and in other countries – in Bulgaria, BiH, Macedonia… But the main problem for Turkey is, that it operates simultaneously on many fronts – in the Balkans, in Central Asia, in Sudan, the Horn of Africa.
It still has limited resources and the constant shifting of political priorities prevents it from achieving concrete goals in the Balkans or in any other region.
Earlier in an interview with IA REGNUM, you said that the Balkans are the sphere of influence of Turkey, the EU and Russia. Given the new situation surrounding Russia’s special military operation on the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR, can we expect changes in the balance of power between Russia and Turkey in the Balkans?
I do not expect any changes in the balance of power between these two countries. Turkey is a mediator in the implementation of the agreement on the export of grain from the Black Sea. Here, Erdogan emerged as a world-class diplomat, which enhanced his image. Erdogan is now perceived as an impeccable pragmatist.
But I don’t see a redistribution of Russia’s and Turkey’s spheres of influence in the Balkans in the long term. I see that the pressure and the role of the European Union in the region will grow. Brussels is using its economic influence on the Balkan countries, and with the deterioration of the energy supply situation in the region, the EU will have in its hands an increasingly powerful tool of pressure with which it will push the Balkan countries into its own sphere of influence.
Translation: SM
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