Turkey’s standing in Middle East is diminishing, says poll

Survey showed “extremely positive and very positive” views of Turkey in the region fell to 59 per cent, a drop from 78 per cent two years ago and from 69 per cent last year.

ISTANBUL // The image of Turkey in the Middle East is darkening as a result of Ankara’s policies towards Syria and Egypt, according to a poll conducted in the region.

In the survey, conducted in 16 Middle East states and published by a respected non-governmental think tank in Istanbul this week, the UAE emerged as the most popular country in the region, followed by Saudi Arabia. Turkey, which topped the popularity chart in the past two years, dropped to third place.

But despite its slipping popularity in the region, Turkey is still regarded as a key player in the Middle East.

“Whether they like it or not, people in the Middle East keep track of Turkey,” said Sabiha Senyucel Gundogar, director of the foreign policy programme at the Turkey Economic and Social Studies Foundation (Tesev), which organised the poll in August and September. Tesev has been conducting the yearly survey since 2009.

This year’s poll showed that “extremely positive and very positive” views of Turkey in the region fell to 59 per cent, a drop from 78 per cent two years ago and from 69 per cent last year.

The poll of 2,800 people aged 18 and older, most of whom described themselves as member of the middle class, showed that 67 per cent of respondents viewed the UAE favourably, making the UAE the most popular country in the region, followed by Saudi-Arabia, which received a favourable rating of 60 per cent.

China was the most popular nation outside the Middle East region with 64 per cent.

Perceptions of Turkey’s role in the Arab Spring also took a hit. A total of 37 per cent of respondents thought that Turkey had had a positive influence on the political changes in the region – almost 20 percentage points down from two years ago.

The drop was most dramatic in Egypt, where sympathies with Turkey decreased from 84 per cent to 38 per cent within one year.

Turkey’s government strongly criticised the removal from power of Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi in July and has called for his reinstatement. Last month, Egypt expelled the Turkish ambassador and Turkey reacted by declaring Egypt’s envoy persona non grata.

Turkey has also taken sides in the conflict in Syria, with strong support for the opposition and calls for a resignation of president Bashar Al Assad. According to Tesev, sympathies for Turkey in Syria, where respondents were reached by telephone in Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Homs, dropped from 93 per cent in 2010, the year before the Syrian conflict broke out, to 22 per cent today.

At the same time, the view that Turkey, a Sunni majority country, was following a foreign policy along sectarian lines strengthened throughout the region and reached 39 per cent this year, after 28 per cent in 2012.

Support for Turkey, a Muslim nation with a secular constitution and a western-style market economy, as a model for the region also dropped, but remained strong at 51 per cent. Almost two out of three respondents said Turkey’s influence in the Middle East was growing, and 60 per cent said they wished Turkey would play a bigger role in the region.

That result was down from 71 per cent two years ago, but it is an indication that respect for Turkey in the Middle East is still high, according to Ms Gundogar and Mensur Akgun, a political scientist, the two leading experts on the Tesev poll.

“The most surprising result is that Turkey’s image has remained strong” despite the dramatic drop in support for Turkey in Egypt and Syria, they wrote in an analysis of the survey.

Referring to anti-government protests that swept Turkey last summer, they pointed out that half of respondents still saw Turkey as a model despite the turbulence.

“Turkey is still seen as one of the powerful actors in the region,” they wrote.