Turkey, the Eu and the Middle East: Foreign Policy Cooperation and the Arab Uprisings by Buğra Susler

Author:Buğra Susler [Susler, Buğra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, General, Diplomacy
ISBN: 9780367236137
Google: x5vSDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 52018190
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

Turkish decision to initiate evacuation operation by sea on 20 February

The previous CO looked at the initial Turkish reaction leading to the Turkish decision to take a critical stance against the Gaddafi government. There was another opportunity for cooperation with regard to the evacuation of citizens from Libya. Specifically, potential cooperation had to do with the extent to which consultations with the EU took place in the planning and execution of the evacuation operation and its aftermath. The relationship during this CO corresponds to the “unilateral information” point because the flow of information was rather one way in the sense that the Turkish government informed the EU of its intentions and then proceeded with actions without much discussion or exchange of views.

Indeed, Turkey was not officially a part of the EU crisis management mechanisms since it was not a member. Yet, evacuation was not only an important issue for Turkey but also a key area in which the EU member states cooperated, as their citizens were also stranded in Libya. Therefore, there was a mutual concern about evacuating people from Libya, which provided a shared context in which coordination could have taken place.

What happened was that the Turkish government immediately began its evacuation before the EU could even decide on an action. Unilateral action was preferable for the Turkish government because, due to the large number of Turkish citizens in Libya and the rapid escalation of violence, they were working against time to remove people from the conflict zone.

Cooperation took place on a bilateral basis with individual EU states in the sense that the Turkish government helped the evacuation of a number of EU citizens upon requests from individual member states. There is no evidence that the Turkish government specifically offered help to EU member states, but it helped those requesting help, which was particularly welcomed by the EU (Interview EU06). It was reported that Germany, France, the UK, Italy, and Sweden were among the EU member states who formally requested help from the Turkish government (Zaman, 2011). For example, the Bulgarian PM publicly stated that the evacuation of Bulgarian citizens from Benghazi was only possible by sea, and, for that, he requested Turkey’s help (ibid.). In this case, the safe evacuation of Bulgarian citizens was achieved via bilateral coordination in the sense that the Bulgarian and Turkish governments jointly made sure Bulgarians were safely transferred to Bulgaria.

The Turkish government informed the EU about its position, and the EU was kept up-to-date about Turkish actions. A counsellor at the EU Delegation in Ankara noted that they were thankful to the Turkish government for helping EU nationals (Interview EU02). Similarly, the Turkey advisor of the High Representative stated that the Turkish response in terms of the evacuation was “impressive” and claimed that the Turkish government was able to mobilise resources in a way that was actually harder for some member states because the Turkish government owned airlines and civil vessels and was able to mobilise them quickly, whereas some member states’ airlines or civil vessels did not have any government connections at all (Interview EU04).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.