Dmitry Bridge: Turkiye is playing both sides

Speaking with Alpha News, Turkologist Dmitry Bridge commented on the Turkish parliament’s approval of Sweden’s NATO bid.

“Turkiye’s actions to recognize Sweden as part of NATO stem from the fact that the European Union and Sweden accepted Turkiye’s conditions regarding the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. We know that Sweden supported the Kurds and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and this posed a direct threat to Turkiye’s national security and its interests in the region as a whole. Because the Kurdistan Workers’ Party has representatives in Syria and Iraq and is constantly trying to provoke Turkiye.

Turkiye constantly sees this as a certain threat to its future because the Kurdistan project is dangerous for part of the territory where Kurds live in Turkiye. Turkiye uses all methods of pressure in relation to NATO, the European Union, and Sweden. Of course, it wants to get some kind of benefit from this in an economic, military and strategic sense,” the Turkologist said.

According to the expert, Turkiye is pursuing a policy of double standards.

“Turkiye is now facing big economic problems, and these problems may be related to the actions of the Turkish President in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the European Union, and US policy. Turkiye did not support Western sanctions against Russia but is still a key player in the NATO, a key player in the region, so any NATO’s actions must be coordinated with Turkiye. This is surely a big problem for the European Union and for NATO, since Turkiye’s policy is different from theirs. Now NATO will coordinate its actions with Turkiye. But Turkiye seems to be playing both sides. On the one hand, Turkiye is friends with Russia; on the other hand, it is friends with the Western world and supports the West’s rhetoric.

The same thing applies if we talk, for example, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the one hand, the Turkish President opposes Israel’s actions and operations in the Gaza Strip, and on the other hand, it still maintains some kind of economic relationship with Israel despite all the disagreements. Turkiye has a policy of double standards: it says one thing, but in practice we see different actions. This applies to both politics and economics. So, I believe that any actions of Turkiye are more related to benefit. It never takes any action without receiving something in return for its country, economy, politics, and so on,” Bridge concluded.