Ancient India’s connection with Anatolia dates back to the Vedic era (1000 BC). The rich cultural exchanges continuing till the Mughal-Ottoman empires. Modern history is replete with cordial engagements around Dr MA Ansari’s famous mission to Turkey, the Khilafat movement and above all, India’s principled support towards Turkey’s war of independence.

Mahatma Gandhi had openly taken a stand against injustices on Turkey, during the First World War. However post-independence, the civilisational bonhomie had encountered the contretemps of the new global order and ‘blocs’. Turkey was part of CENTO (Central Treaty Organisation) that was ideologically opposed to the Soviet ‘bloc’, towards which India was predisposed.

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Co-religiousity, Cold War sensibilities and military regimes in Islamabad and Ankara, ensured a more-than cordial relationship between the two nations, to the occasional chagrin of India. Turkey had issued a rare communique in favour of Pakistan after the 1965 Indo-Pak war and subsequently supplied armaments to the depleted Pakistani armoury. The 1971 IndoPak war was no different; Turkey was among the last countries to recognise Bangladesh. Turkey’s continued support to Pakistan had even led to the withdrawal of its ambassador from Dhaka in 2016, when the authorities in Bangladesh had executed Jamaat-e-Islami leaders convicted of horrific crimes in the Liberation War.

Re-imagining and projecting itself as the most progressive and powerful Islamic nation at the forefront of Ummah (Islamic world), Ankara has tactically supported Islamabad to burnish its own emerging leadership ambitions, with the implied undercurrents of dislodging Saudi Arabia from such a leadership position. Psychologically, the flipflop in the Pakistani narrative of getting inspired from more overtly secular moorings to veering towards abject religiousity has often seen Kemal Ataturk emerge as the reference leader for many Pakistanis, most notably the former President, Pervez Musharraf. Today, the overt Islamisation of Turkish society with the emergence of Recep Erdogan-led Islamist party, Justice and Development Party (AKP) has found enhanced traction, emotions and gravitation with Pakistan’s own confused and diluted secularity of the past.

Both nations are also at the crossroad of balancing their historical and fractured ties with the United States, which affords a common belligerence and ‘voice’ against the Western powers that enables them to adopt heroic postures within the Ummah, and especially amongst the electoral constituents. With much in common and the possibilities of a realpolitik win-win situation emerging from supporting each other, Turkey has emerged as amongst the staunchest supporters of Pakistan in the United Nations and other fora.

Affluent Arab allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are increasingly ‘balancing’ their act in favour of India, in the deeply hyphenated Indo-Pak realm. Pakistan is reciprocating the Turkish delight as it urges Turkey to counter-leverage the embarrassing ‘abandonment’ by Arab Sheikhdoms, by joining hands with the avowedly anti-Saudi bloc that includes Turkey, Qatar, Iran and Malaysia. The metamorphosis from a religio-psycho-cultural bond to a more tangible and strategic diplomatic-economic joinstmanship in the Pak-Turk realm has been unmistakably, accelerated.

This has led President Erdogan to renege on the spirit of his statement on a visit to India in 2017 ~ “Turkey will always be by the side of India in full solidarity while battling terrorism”, with the unquestionable context of the source of ‘terrorism’ in India being, Pakistan. Turkey has had a complicated relationship with terrorism, where it has attacked the Kurdish militia and sided with some other extremist militias in the Syrian battleground. Turkey has also shown belligerence against SaudiUS interests and often taken contrarian positions, sparing no effort to embarrass Riyadh in the Khashoggi affair. The churning in the Middle East with no clear winners in sight, has offered an opportunity to Turkey to cobble together an alternate bloc composed of ‘unnaturals’ (e.g. Iran, Qatar, Malaysia, Pakistan etc.) that could rival the Saudi Arabian stranglehold over the Ummah via institutions like OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation).

Open provocation to undo past equations, tenor and positions has been the preferred Turkish strategy. On a recent visit to Pakistan, Erdogan has stirred the hornet’s nest and gratuitously obliged Islamabad on the contentious issue of Kashmir, especially since Pakistan is struggling to bankroll sympathisers to its position. Erdogan’s words in Islamabad were both calculated and short ~ “Events that happened a hundred years ago in Çanakkale in Turkey are being repeated in Indian-occupiedKashmir (sic) and Turkey will continue to raise its voice against the oppression.” Islamabad lapped up the rare endorsement of its position and Delhi rightfully summoned the Turkish Ambassador for a verbal demarche.

India referred to the recent Turkish enthusiasm to take unwarranted interest in the internal affairs of other countries by stating, “This recent episode is but one more example of a pattern of Turkey interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. India finds that completely unacceptable.” Turkey is an old hat in charming Pakistan with churlish initiatives like naming the road on which the Indian Embassy in Ankara is situated as Cinnah Caddesi i.e. Indian Embassy on Jinnah Road! The power struggle within the Ummah and Turkey’s ambition to assume a leadership role will require it to play along with Pakistan’s sensitivities and necessities, and the recent tilt and statements are part of that gameplan.

While the Indo-Turk trade is not insignificant at $7.8 billion (2019), it is still less than $18 billion with Malaysia, which too had sullied the relationship with India on Kashmir, and incurred Delhi’s wrath. It is important to recognise that unlike the Middle Eastern theatre which is contiguous to Turkish borders and direct interests, pandering to Pakistani urgency is realpolitik and reflective of the carefully calibrated, Turkish chessboard moves. India must call Turkey’s bluff and hypocrisy on terrorism, as it will remain contextually linked to Pakistan’s own incorrigibility, duplicity and infamy.

There are no major counter-levers available to Delhi on Ankara’s latest provocation, other than sticking to its own principled stance, issuing diplomatic demarches and waiting for the inevitable Pakistani mis-step and disrepute.

(The writer IS Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands & Puducherry)