Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu began an official two-day visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Monday in a bid to improve relations.
Ankara will likely raise the issue of lifting the Saudi unofficial boycott of Turkish goods since 2019, which has resulted in a significant fall in Turkish exports to the Kingdom.
Tensions between the countries were led by Turkish support for Qatar in a dispute with its Gulf neighbors and over President Tayyip Erdogan’s backing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned in Saudi Arabia.
Cavusoglu will also pay a visit to Egypt after his meeting in the Kingdom to normalize ties with another regional actor after a long period of enmity.
Since the fall of 2020, Turkey has been concertedly working to repair its relationships with regional powers in the Middle East.
Turkey’s policy shift was driven by its desire for more investment and trade opportunities, its realization of the limits of unilateralism and desire to hedge against its increasingly erratic relationships with great powers
Experts believe that Turkey has reached out to Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and even the UAE to de-escalate tensions.
These outcomes have had mixed results, as these powers still remain on opposite sides of the Eastern Mediterranean dispute, but Turkey has succeeded in de-escalating tensions with Egypt on Libya and this is seen in Ankara as an encouraging sign that could be replicated in Saudi Arabia
Experts also note that this latest normalization drive by Turkey with the Gulf and Middle Eastern countries may be linked to an adjustment strategy with the new Biden administration in the US.
Therefore Turkey wants to mend ties with the Arab camp to consolidate its position and adjust to the new reality in the region.
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