Turkey’s latest foreign policy moves have left me feeling a bit of deja vu. Much like six months ago, Ankara has again been renewing once-frigid regional ties, mulling another assault on Kurdish militants in northern Syria, and patting itself on the back for nailing down the Ukraine grain deal.
This time around, Ankara’s new friend is in Cairo, rather than Tel Aviv or Yerevan. And there appears to be more urgency to the proposed military operation against the YPG after the recent terrorist attack in the heart of Istanbul, not to mention the looming election.
Turkey and Egypt have, of course, been at odds since the 2013 removal of Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government, after which Ankara welcomed several of the group’s exiled leaders. Rapprochement talks began nearly two years ago and had waxed and waned until last week, when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and his Turkish counterpart shook hands at a World Cup reception hosted by Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim.
It’s widely thought the Qatari leader organised the meeting, which was seen as a watershed, as two regional powers appeared to set aside their differences and embrace co-operation. With the Brotherhood largely defunct, the main issue had been Libya, where Ankara supported the Tripoli-based GNA in its fight against Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, backed by Egypt and other Arab states.
With Libya now mostly peaceful and headed, hopefully, towards elections, that concern, too, has been largely settled. Energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean has been their other point of contention. In 2020, in response to Turkey’s late 2019 maritime borders agreement with Libya’s GNA, Greece and Egypt agreed on their own maritime deal, and Cairo joined the East Med Gas Forum. Ankara was none too pleased about these moves.
Thus, it came as something of a surprise that the day after the Sisi-Erdogan handshake, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias arrived in Cairo to sign a maritime search-and-rescue agreement. Turkey quickly denounced the deal, blaming Greece’s desire to further its maximalist claims. Yet, Ankara refrained from criticising Egypt, perhaps because just a month prior Turkey and Libya had signed a follow-up deal of their own, on oil and gas exploration.
Setting aside Greece, which is a unique foreign policy file for Turkey, Ankara has mostly taken a softly-softly approach across the region of late. Since mid-2020, Turkey has improved relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, Armenia and Egypt.
It’s not far-fetched to imagine Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya and Israel aligned on maritime borders
Why the turn to diplomacy? Partly for financial support during an economic crisis. And indeed, Turkey now looks set to receive $5 billion from Saudi Arabia and $10 billion from Qatar, with more likely to come. But it is also to increase regional amity and stability, which tends to boost co-operation and economic growth.
What’s remarkable is that Turkey pulled off its diplomatic breakthroughs without sacrificing its independent foreign policy. Cairo had reportedly set two conditions for renewed ties: a full Turkish withdrawal from Libya and the handing over of exiled Brotherhood leaders. Similarly, Israel is widely thought to have told Turkey it had to shut down the Istanbul offices of Hamas. Ankara did none of these things, yet still improved ties.
Turkey may have made some yet-to-be revealed promises, but this bold balancing act tracks with its broader foreign policy positioning. Ankara has found that it can go against the western grain – boosting trade with, rather than sanctioning, Russia; attacking the US-partnered YPG; refusing to approve new Nato members; and sidelining free speech – and suffer minimal consequences as long as it simultaneously embraces the West’s agenda, as with the grain deal, hosting millions of refugees, supporting Ukrainian sovereignty and renewing ties with the likes of Saudi Arabia and Israel.
A zig for every zag seems to work just fine. Next up could be a meeting between Mr Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, possibly brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Turkish officials have said a summit could happen before Turkey’s upcoming elections, set for June, and it would probably be seen as another example of Ankara thumbing its nose at the West.
So what might be the zag? Last month, neighbours and long-time foes Israel and Lebanon settled their long-standing maritime dispute. Now there’s talk that Lebanon and Syria will soon meet to nail down their borders in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, along with the unlikeliest of partners, Israel and Hamas, are set to seal a $1.4 billion deal to extract gas off the coast of Gaza.
Suddenly it’s not too far-fetched to imagine Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya and Israel largely aligned on maritime borders and Mediterranean energy. And with the backing of Gulf states, this group might be able to bring Greece and Cyprus on-side as well.
You might recall that it was Mr Putin who told Mr Erdogan, just last month, that his vision of Turkey as an energy hub could be made real. At a meeting in north-eastern Syria on the weekend, Russia urged the YPG to withdraw southward and allow Syrian regime forces to take control of a buffer zone along the Turkish border. Such a shift would eliminate the need for another Turkish incursion and clear the way for an Assad-Erdogan summit.
The timing is good, as Ankara expects to resume drilling in the Mediterranean in the coming days and its Black Sea gas discovery is expected to come online in the next few months. With a bit of luck, Mr Erdogan might soon be well positioned to achieve his gas hub dreams and potentially provide Europe – struggling these days to wean itself from Russian gas – with a much-needed energy lifeline.
Zig, zag, zoom.
The President's Cake
Director: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
Recipe: Spirulina Coconut Brothie
Ingredients
1 tbsp Spirulina powder
1 banana
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk (full fat preferable)
1 tbsp fresh turmeric or turmeric powder
½ cup fresh spinach leaves
½ cup vegan broth
2 crushed ice cubes (optional)
Method
Blend all the ingredients together on high in a high-speed blender until smooth and creamy.
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Yemen's Bahais and the charges they often face
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
On racial profiling at airports
500 People from Gaza enter France
115 Special programme for artists
25 Evacuation of injured and sick
