Geography is destiny.
The quote is sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, but it might as well also be the working motto of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
This past week, Erdoğan strung together a trio of geopolitical wins that underscored his success in leveraging his country’s size, military capability, and—perhaps most of all—geographic position to achieve outsize influence.
Erdoğan did this despite facing some of the biggest political protests he has weathered in years following the imprisonment of his political rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. It’s no wonder Erdoğan is harnessing international gains to shore up his domestic position.
The first victory was US President Donald Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria’s new government. Turkey played a catalytic role in the December ouster of Bashar al-Assad, Erdoğan’s nemesis who had ruled Syria since 2000, when he succeeded his father. It was fitting that Trump included Erdoğan by phone in his meeting this week in Riyadh with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Second, the Kurdish militant group known as the PKK announced this week that it will disband and end its armed struggle after months of Turkish backchannel diplomacy. There’s still a risk that the PKK could fragment into smaller groups that attack Turkey, but for now, the development is a win for the country’s security.
Third, Istanbul played host to the first direct peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials since March 2022, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also flying in from a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in the Turkish town of Antalya. Russian President Vladimir Putin was a no-show, which kept Trump from traveling to Turkey as well, and the two-hour meeting appears to have been fruitless. Yet it underscored Erdoğan’s ability to navigate both Moscow and Kyiv even while providing Ukraine with armed drones.
For years, some Western officials and analysts have dismissed Erdoğan as a populist authoritarian whose inflation-ridden economy was troubled and whose geopolitical ambitions were fantasy. But it now rings truer when Erdoğan says, as he did in December, “Turkey is bigger than Turkey. As a nation, we cannot limit our horizon to 782,000 square kilometers.”
None of this week’s wins are permanent. The jury is out on whether Syria’s new leadership can hold the country together. The PKK peace is fragile. Ukraine-Russia talks still don’t seem to be going anywhere. And other pressing questions remain unresolved, such as whether Erdoğan will be able to successfully manage relations with Israel given Israeli security concerns about the expanded Turkish military presence in Syria. However all that turns out, Erdoğan’s focus remains on protecting both his legacy and longevity after more than twenty years as prime minister and then president.
We might be a long way from a Pax Turcica. For now, however, Erdoğan and Turkey have gained relevance as an indispensable player from the Black Sea to the Levant, and from Central Asia to Europe, where the Turkish military will play a crucial role if Europe is to have the wherewithal to provide for Ukraine’s security—and its own.
Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.
