The NATO Summit — Behind the Scenes of Media Folklore

The actual dynamics of the NATO Summit held in London have little in common with the public exchange of fire which we witnessed among individual leaders. If we trace the exchange of pejorative comments made by President Donald Trump in relation to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or those made between Emmanuel Macron and Recep Erdogan — they could soon divert us from the important events that have occurred in the British capital. The ease with which the media was misled by the use of certain epithets is surprising, which has also affected the way in which the NATO meeting was presented to the public.

Indeed, both France and Turkey have their shared reasons for behaving reservedly toward one another. Some of the most recent developments have branched out in several directions. First, France sent a military contingent, albeit a small one, to Northern Syria, which Ankara interpreted as a hostile move by Paris against the Turkish interests in their southern neighbor.

Second, the Republic of Cyprus officially enlisted the French company Total to carry out studies regarding the presence of natural gas around the island state. (Turkey, which supports a local government in the northern part of Cyprus, claims that the activities of the French company are illegal.)

Third, France supports the government led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar in Libya (together with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia), whereas Turkey supports the internationally recognized government led by Fayez al-Sarraj (together with Qatar and Italy). Both the Cyprus and Libya cases concern the presence and control of natural resources in the continental shelves of the countries.

Fourth, France is one of the most active European countries in drafting economic sanctions against Turkey related to its activities in the exploration of natural deposits in the Eastern Mediterranean region (in waters which the EU considers to be Cypriot or Greek).

Fifth, France wants to participate in military training in the Eastern Mediterranean region, which is conducted jointly between Greece, Cyprus and Egypt. But these Franco-Turkish contradictions were present prior to the NATO summit and will continue in the future. Therefore, the discussion which has arisen between Paris and Ankara regarding who is “brain dead,” is just part of the rhetorical folklore between the two countries. (This was why the Turkish ambassador in the French capital was forcibly summoned by the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs.)

To understand the real dynamics of the NATO summit, however, we must turn our attention to its other elements. One positive outcome is naming Northern Macedonia in the NATO Declaration, which may be necessary to compensate for the unfavorable position in which Skopje was placed after the EU refused to provide a start date for the negotiations with our western neighbor. The other element is the increasingly bold identification of China as a country whose behavior could pose risks for the alliance. The third element concerning updating the strategy to counteract the Russian hybrid and military threat against the northeastern NATO flank was adopted. (By the way, this is not surprising given the fact that the countries — Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland – contribute their 2% gross domestic product share to the alliance budget.) The fourth element involves the importance of the successful meeting between Trump and Erdogan (against the background of the bilateral meetings between the U.S. president and his European counterparts).

There is obvious American handwriting in all four developments of the NATO summit. The other focus of media attention of the London meeting, — the vitriol of Trudeau, Johnson and Macron toward Trump — must be reconsidered against this view. Or as the popular saying goes, “He who laughs last, laughs best.”

In fact, the renewal of NATO’s strategy concerning the northeastern flank of the alliance and Russia respectively, was of the greatest importance at the London forum. Turkey ultimately did not block the changes. This is not surprising; it’s not considered news in the journalistic sense of the word, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Otherwise, Ankara has previously threatened to activate a kind of veto mechanism if NATO member countries do not distance themselves from backing Syrian Kurds (which Turkey considers to be a branch of the PKK and therefore a terrorist organization).

But what did Turkey get in exchange for not blocking the decision to renew NATO’s strategy against the alliance’s northeastern flank? The key lies in the following two things:

First, the NATO secretary-general refused to take sides in the Greek-Turkish dispute that arose after signing the memorandum of understanding between Turkey and Libya regarding the allocation of their maritime territories. (This document was met with vigorous Greek resistance given the fact that it includes waters that Athens considers its own.) Apart from being very controversial from the point of view of international law, the document is also a blatant provocation of Athens. However, from the Turkish point of view, this is a form of reaction against the enhanced cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean region between Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Israel.

Second, the alliance refused to address Turkey collectively and critically, including in the form of sanctions, which Athens demanded due to the case of the signed memorandum between Turkey and Libya. In other words, the media understood well, and speculated that Erdogan has backed down on renewing NATO’s northeastern strategy, but the media did not realize why the Turkish president had done so.

Another basic issue that also prompted misunderstanding and concerned the Alliance is the reason this NATO meeting in London chose to focus on the northeastern flank regions provided that there are so many issues to be resolved in the Southeast. One of these issues concerns matters that are already lurking in the Greek-Turkish relations. As second issue concerns increased Russian activity in the Black Sea and Caspian region. The third issue is the increasing synchronization in the activities between Turkey and Russia, and so on. If nothing else, the French president is right at least about one thing: NATO is suffering from considerable brain death.