Erdogan visits Qatar on his first post-pandemic trip abroad

"Doha is Ankara's most loyal ally in the region and the world," explained analyst Tom Wheeldon of France 24 last year. And it has been proved once again: The first trip of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan abroad after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has been to Qatar to meet his counterpart, Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad al-Thani, in a move that reflects the exceptional harmony between both administrations in a convulsed international context marked by growing tensions between the Ankara-Doha axis and the Arab and Western powers. Moreover, this visit comes just one day after Erdogan appointed a new ambassador to the emirate, Mustafa Göksu.

According to the local Daily Sabah, Erdogan travelled to Doha on a private plane accompanied by the Minister of the Treasury and Finance, Berat Albayrak; the Minister of National Defence, Hulusi Akar; the Director of Communications, Fahrettin Altun; the presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin; and the head of the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT), Hakan Fidan. 

The most relevant aspect of the meeting, taking into account the regional geopolitical board, was "the exchange of views on regional and international issues". The official Qatari news agency QNA said the two leaders discussed "important developments in Palestine, Libya, Syria and Yemen" and shared "views on international issues that are important to both countries".

At this point, it should be noted that the two countries share virtually all their regional agendas. Both aspire to expand an Islamist agenda in the Middle East and even in Africa, where Turkey has made significant progress in some countries within its sphere of influence such as Somalia. To do so, they rely on the Muslim Brothers, an organization with Egyptian roots that they finance and that is considered a terrorist by their home country and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Russia, among other states. "Qatar and Turkey share a common ideological affiliation and have been accused of supporting the same extremist networks to advance their regional agenda," The Arab Weekly recalled.

The cooperation between this triple-axis, Ankara-Doha-Brotherhood, works especially well in the civil war in Libya, open since 2011, in which they have shown their support for the Government of National Unity (GNA), led by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj and sponsored by the UN, against the other faction, the National Liberation Army (LNA), commanded by Marshal Khalifa Haftar and supported by France, Russia, Egypt and the Arab Quartet.

The combined action of the three actors - with the sending of weapons and mostly Syrian mercenaries to the ranks of the GNA - allowed the victory of this side over the capital, Tripoli, at the beginning of June, and effectively counteracted the advances of the LNA over western Libyan territory. However, despite this defeat, Haftar and his allies are determined to change the course of the war, organising new counter-offensives and defending the geostrategic enclaves of oil-rich Sirte and Jufra, where the country's largest air base is located. Egypt even threatened Turkey with direct military intervention, which had a major deterrent impact, as it had managed to slow down the escalation of violence.

The Erdogan government was therefore forced to turn again to its Qatari counterpart. On 23 June, the president of the Eurasian nation phoned Al-Thani to ask him to double Qatar's funding for military war operations in Libya, as reported at the time by The Arab Weekly, although the official version of the conversation was that the two leaders discussed "strategic relations between the two countries and ways to support and develop them", as well as "a number of regional and international issues of common interest". 

A former Turkish diplomat quoted by the publication revealed that "the focus of the phone call was purely financial" and that the Turkish executive "does not tire in its demands for more Doha money to maintain the momentum of Turkish military operations in Syria and Libya. "Qatari gas money has played an important role in financing these conflicts and wars, especially because Turkey cannot bear its burdens in light of the successive economic and financial crises witnessed by the country over the past few years," the source added, a situation that has been aggravated by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, for analysts in the field, who cite experts familiar with Turkish politics, the relationship between the two countries is uneven, with Qatar even subject to "blackmail" from Turkey. "Erdogan, scorned by his opponents and rivals who consider him an opportunist, has been using the Libyan conflict, and previously the Syrian conflict, to put pressure on Qatar to provide him with huge sums of money. He does this by warning Qatar's leaders that the Doha-backed Islamist camp could suffer a defeat that would be catastrophic for them, allowing their rivals to control strategic areas in the region," they say.

Another of the objectives of the Turkish delegation's trip, at the highest level, to Qatar, has been to discuss relations between the two countries and the determination to advance them "in all areas, with the development of common interests, especially in the fields of economy, trade, investment, energy and defence," according to the local newspaper TRT. 

In this regard, it is worth mentioning that cooperation between Doha and Ankara has seen new impulses during the VICD-19 pandemic. For example, on May 22nd, Qatar came to the rescue of the Turkish lira, which had plunged to its lowest level in its history weeks before - its price fell to 7.25 units against the dollar - highlighting the weakness of the Eurasian nation's economy. Then, the Central Bank of Turkey announced an extension of the local currency swap agreement signed with Doha in August 2018, when Ankara suffered a major currency crisis. In practice, this meant that Turkey could obtain up to $10 billion in reserves to shore up the lira's position. The extension of this pact had another objective: to facilitate bilateral trade, because Turkish exports to the Gulf monarchy amounted to only $1.2 billion, with even smaller imports, according to economist Cem Baslevent of Istanbul Bilgi University at the time.

Last November, before the arrival of the COVID-19, the fifth edition of the Qatar-Turkey Higher Strategic Committee was held, where it was already reaffirmed "the sincere desire and determination to move from bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership" that would open "new areas of cooperation. In addition to the economic aspect, the two countries have strengthened their collaboration in the military field, with the creation of the Qatar-Turkey Joint Force Command at the base called Tariq bin Zayad, located in Qatari territory with a capacity for 3,000 soldiers, and the holding of numerous joint military exercises.

At the political level, Ankara has also become the safeguard of Doha, being the only country to help it after the imposition of the boycott by the Arab quartet in the year 2107, with the shipment of essential goods, reaching an increase of exports up to 90% in the four months following the announcement of the blockade.