Khalifa Erdogan changing his tone on India?
For the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has refrained from mentioning Kashmir in his United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) address.
This year when Khalifa Erdogan addressed the UNGA, he had a different tone and sang a different tune. His speech was a big disappointment to Pakistan and a huge suroruse to others including India. The Turkish president did speak at the UN, but this time it was surprisingly unusual – there was no mention of Kashmir at all.
Since 2019, Recep Tayyip Erdogan striving to be the Khalifa of the Muslim world never skipped missing mentioning the issue of Kashmir during his annual address at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
It somewhat became a tradition for this Turk to speak more about the India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the centre revoked abrogated Article 370, scrapping the special status that J&K had.
The mentioning of Kashmir in Erdogan’s UNGA address, in some form or another, since 2019 got common over the past few years. In 2023, he called for a “just and lasting peace” in Kashmir through cooperation and dialogue between India and Pakistan.
The Turkish leader echoed similar sentiments in 2022 and even regretted that “strong peace, and cooperation between India and Pakistan had still not yet been established, despite 75 years following their independence.”
A year before, in 2021, Erdogan called for the “resolution” of Kashmir through UN resolutions, something that he had said in 2020 as and 2019.
In fact, in 2019, the Turkish president was most vocal when he said that the Kashmir “dispute must be resolved through dialogue on the basis of justice and fairness, rather than conflict.” Once, outside the UN, Erdogan even went on to say, “India right now has become a country where massacres are widespread. What massacres? Massacres of Muslims. By who? Hindus.”
At a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament on February 14, 2020, the Turkish president had said: “We have never forgotten and will never forget the help, which the Pakistani people extended, by sharing their own bread during our War of Independence. And now, Kashmir is and will be the same for us. It was Canakkale yesterday, and it is Kashmir today, [there is] no difference”.
Though he himself has been brutally crushing the Human Rights of Kurds and has been in forceful occupation of half of Cyprus. Even the people in Turkey are not very happy with his style of functioning.
The remarks of Erdogan were often viewed as unwarranted interference in India’s domestic affairs, which New Delhi consistently rejected strongly.
India reminded Turkey that, unlike Ankara, which invaded and occupied part of the sovereign nation of Cyprus in 1974, New Delhi has not taken any similar actions concerning Kashmir.
But, if not Kashmir, what was the focus issue of Erdogan’s speech at the UNGA in 2024.
His speech centred around the conflicts in Syria and the Gaza strip. Also, the Turkish leader used the platform to continue with his criticism of Israel and advocacy of the Palestinian cause.
Erdogan even criticised the UN for what he called turning Palestinian territory into the “world’s largest cemetery.”
However, now Khalifa Erdogan’s seeks to join the BRICS bloc which comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
In his speech at the 79th UNGA session in New York, Erdogan said, “We maintain our will to develop our relations with Brics, which brings together emerging economies.”
If Turkey joins BRICS, it would be the first North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member to be a part of the bloc. Turkey has backing of both Russia and China for BRICS entry but it can only happen with consensus of India.
Turkey also aims to get a full-fledge membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and not just an observer. This too is not possible without India’s nod as India is also among nine permanent members of SCO.
In Turkey, Indians are third-largest Asian tourists after China and Indonesia and India is in a position to the shut the tap. Also, Ankara has been witnessing a gradual expansion of Indian businesses.
Turkey has been making efforts with countries including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE and incidentally, India shares excellent relations with all these nations. No wonder Turkey appears to be acknowledging this working on strengthening its relationship with India.
India has also strengthened its relationship with both Greece and Armenia and this has surely rattled Turkey to no end.
Turkey’s growing discontent with Pakistan is also becoming increasingly evident, primarily driven by the rising number of illegal Pakistani immigrants.
This influx has become a significant point of friction in Ankara’s relationship with Islamabad. Reports indicate that many of these immigrants are failing to respect Turkish culture, especially when it comes to women.
Furthermore, intelligence findings suggest that illegal Pakistani immigrants have been involved in serious criminal activities, including gang violence, human and drug trafficking, and the ransom kidnapping of tourists in Turkey.
Due to the Khalifa’s actions and utterences over Kashmur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had cancelled his planned visit to Turkey in 2019.
Also, a lucrative $2.3 billion naval deal between India and Turkey’s defence company was terminated. Not just this, New Delhi also cut its other defence exports to Turkey, including dual-use equipment.India also has reduced its imports from Turkey.
