Turkey, Saudi ties less than meet the eye
Despite a shared interest in supporting opposition groups against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Riyadh and Ankara are unlikely to become allies.
An overly ambitious Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu boasted during a speech to the Turkish parliament less than two years ago in April 2012 that Turkey was the principal pacesetter in the region.
“As Turkey, we will continue to guide the winds of change in the Middle East and be its leader,” a self-assured Davutoglu said. He added that from the streets of Cairo, Tripoli and Beirut, all the way to Jerusalem and Tunisia, Turkey was admired as a country that had the capacity to determine the region’s future order based on peace and brotherhood. “No matter what anyone says, the leader and the spokesman for this new peaceful order will be Turkey,” Davutoglu said back then.
That’s all history now. Today, it is also much easier to understand — with the advantage of hindsight — how such remarks must have grated on nerves in Riyadh, Cairo and Tehran, which are clearly pushing for their own regional aspirations that are not necessarily in tune with those of Turkey.
It is also obvious that Davutoglu never considered the possibility that there might be other Islamic powers trying to shape the Middle East according to their own vision. His overly simplistic approach was predicated on the mistaken assumption that being predominantly Islamic, the Middle East could — with Islamic Turkey’s benign leadership and guidance — act as a unified entity.
