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Erdogan’s 'win-win' on the world stage

Lately, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a master poker player with global leaders: He not only plays his own cards well, but he can also see the cards in the hands of others.
fRONT l-r: China's President Xi Jinping, US President Barack Obama, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (far R) walks following the G20 leaders' family photo in Hangzhou on September 4, 2016.

World leaders are gathering in Hangzhou for the 11th G20 Leaders Summit from September 4 to 5. / AFP / Greg BAKER        (Photo credit should read GREG BAKER/AF

In the Sept. 1 Financial Times, Simon Kuper’s column “How Turkey tramples free speech” had the following accurate observation: “A modern Turkish government has probably never been so central to geopolitics. Western leaders want [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s help to fight [the Islamic State (IS)], to minimize the horrors in Syria and to keep Middle Eastern refugees out of Europe. If he cooperates, the West will allow him his excesses. But Erdogan is now snubbing Europe and the US and flirting with Russia and Iran. He is also going freelance in Syria: Turkish artillery and jets are helping Syrian rebels fight the Kurdish militia.”

It is true that the current Turkish government is central to geopolitics, and there is no one who is more aware of this fact than Erdogan himself. His awareness — and perhaps even more than that, his political wit — is the main reason he is snubbing Europe and the United States and going freelance in Syria.

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