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2025-05-05 The Grand Turk
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In a special position. Erdogan has finally found a loyal ally in Europe
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kamran Gasanov
[REGNUM] The death of the Pope, his solemn funeral and the accompanying meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky became some of the most high-profile world events and overshadowed the other “Italian” agenda.
Continued from Page 2
One important visit to Rome remained in the shadows. On April 29, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived there to participate in the Fourth Intergovernmental Summit and Bilateral Business Forum Turkey-Italy.
Rome and Ankara have something to build their cooperation on. In the current historical period, two trends serve as the foundation for it.
The first is due to the growing demand for partnership with Turkey from European countries.
The Trump administration's course on Ukraine and its views on European security have made Europeans feel weak, dependent and inferior. France, Great Britain, Germany and even Poland are aiming to create an autonomous European army, and until it is created, they are frantically looking for at least some alternative to American support.
With reservations, of course, but Turkey still has some opportunities with its second army in NATO and combat experience during the wars in Syria and Libya.
Erdogan had already been invited to the London summit in March, when Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan went there as a result. Following the meeting, the parties came to the conclusion that without Turkey, it would be very difficult for the Old World to ensure its security.
The criticality of the situation is demonstrated by the behavior of Macron, who just yesterday was squabbling with Erdogan and butting heads with him in Libya and Cyprus, and now regularly calls the Turkish leader.
At the end of March, when 31 leaders gathered for a summit in Paris, Erdogan was also invited, but Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz went instead. The absence of the Turkish president, despite constant invitations to such "get-togethers", creates a situation in which Ankara feels like a "welcome guest" and can now manipulate the Old World itself.
And why not? Erdogan feels particularly satisfied when he recalls how just yesterday Brussels, Paris and Berlin pointed out “human rights,” supported the opposition and rubbed Turkey’s financial dependence on the EU in his face.
Italy, although it has rarely gone too far with Erdogan – perhaps the exception being 2021, when Prime Minister Mario Draghi called him a “dictator” – is, like France, Britain and Germany, concerned about European security.
Italy needs Ankara no less than its neighbors. Erdogan came to the Rome meeting at the invitation of Prime Minister Giorgi Meloni.
The second trend that favors close cooperation between Turkey and the European Union is connected precisely with the role of Italy and its prime minister in world politics. Meloni, no less than Erdogan, occupies a special position today. She is Donald Trump’s only serious ally in Western Europe.
The opposition and recognized extremist party Alternative for Germany and the “outcasts” Viktor Orban and Robert Fico do not count.
At the same time, Meloni has good relations with Brussels and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
By strengthening ties with Erdogan, the Italian prime minister is further strengthening his “hand-in-hand” in Euro-Atlantic geopolitics. Meloni can act as a mediator between Turkey, the EU and the United States. And she has already begun to try on such a role.
According to the Italian press, it was thanks to Meloni's efforts that Trump met with Ursula von der Leyen at the funeral of Pope Francis and that she brought him together with the head of the White House, Vladimir Zelensky.
The head of the Italian government wants to become a cementing link between the US and the EU and has already proposed to Trump to hold a bilateral summit before the June meeting of NATO leaders in The Hague.
Italy and Türkiye, long considered outsiders in the Western world, now have the cards to try to become leaders. And Meloni's meeting with Erdogan looked like a dialogue between two players of equal influence, aiming to strengthen their partnership.
Rome wants to get closer to Ankara than its other partners in the EU and NATO, thereby strengthening its position within both blocs. And Turkey could find in Italy a more influential NATO ally than Poland, theoretically capable of restarting Ankara’s stalled European integration.
Meloni and Erdogan exchanged many pleasantries during their talks. “We see cooperation between Turkey and Italy growing more and more every day,” the Turkish president said, expressing hope that Rome would support Ankara’s EU aspirations.
Erdogan also recalled the joint work of the two countries to “establish stability” in Libya (where, by the way, Turkey and Italy together supported the government of Fayez al-Sarraj in opposition to France and a number of Arab countries) and the restoration of Syria.
The Turkish president invited the Italian prime minister to visit Turkey and reminded him that in 2032 their countries will jointly host the European Football Championship, which will be additional evidence of their friendship.
Meloni was generous with her praise, describing the relationship as “perfect,” which she and Erdogan agreed to make even stronger. “We are very pleased with the results of our work. I am confident that a solid foundation has been laid for the development of impeccable relations between our countries,” she said.
The Turkish president, and Italian politicians too, are no strangers to pathos, but in fairness it should be said that the friendship between Italy and Turkey is backed by fact.
As Meloni noted, the countries reached the $30 billion trade target “five years earlier than planned,” and are now aiming for $40 billion. Italy is Turkey’s second-largest trading partner in Europe. The countries are connected by the important TAP and TANAP gas pipelines, which deliver blue fuel from Azerbaijan to the Balkans and the Apennines.
A separate layer in bilateral relations is military-industrial cooperation, which is very important both for militarizing Turkey and for Europe.
Italy, together with Spain, Great Britain and Germany, manufactures Eurofighter fighters, which Erdogan wanted to buy as an alternative to the “blocked” American F-35 and F-16. However, the deal is being blocked by Germany.
And so, while the French and the British were only thinking about how to force Turkey to send peacekeepers to Ukraine and involve it in ensuring European security, the Italians had already begun to take concrete steps.
In early April, Italian company Leonardo and Turkish UAV manufacturer Baykar signed a cooperation agreement in the field of unmanned technologies. The deal provides for the joint creation of improved models of UAVs Akinci and TB2. Production in the two countries could begin in 2026.
Summing up the meeting, it can be noted that after it, Erdogan was once again convinced of the demand for his country in Europe, and Meloni strengthened her position to be an arbiter in the crisis of Euro-Atlantic relations.
Whether Türkiye and Italy will be able to take advantage of such advantages remains to be seen.
If Meloni succeeds in smoothing the edges between the EU and the US and involving Turkey in ensuring European security without conflict with the US, such activity creates additional risks for Moscow.
If Europe's split with the US deepens and Türkiye integrates into Europe, the scale of the threat to Russia will diminish, but will still be greater than it is now, when Ankara keeps to itself.
However, in any case, one should not underestimate the rationality of Erdogan and Silvio Berlusconi's successor Meloni. Using their position in the West to their maximum advantage, they will not allow their mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia to be harmed.
Both Meloni and Erdogan sympathize with Trump and his peace plan for Ukraine. And in peacetime, Italian business will be the first to try to return to the Russian market, not to mention Turkey, which has been working with Russia in circumvention of sanctions since 2014.
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Posted by badanov 2025-05-05 00:00||
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