Turkey’s ‘balancing act’ with BRICS may stoke NATO fears, but the West needn’t be too worried, analysts say

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023.

Earlier this month, a spokesperson for Turkey’s ruling AK Party said that a process was “underway” for Turkey to join the BRICS group of emerging-market nations.

“Our president has stated at various times that we want to be a member (of BRICS)… Our request on this issue is clear. This process is underway in this framework, but there is no concrete development on this,” Omer Celik told reporters in Ankara, the Turkish capital, per Reuters.

The BRICS group, named after members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, was formed to challenge the political and economic power of developed Western nations.

Since its first informal meetings in 2006, when it was known as just BRIC, the bloc has grown to include Ethiopia, Iran, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia was also invited to join, but a Saudi official said in January it had yet to do so.

Should Turkey now join the bloc, it would become its first NATO member and EU candidate, potentially complicating ties with the West and raising questions over Turkey’s commitment to the military alliance.

Turkey’s relationship with NATO has already come under strain due to the country’s continued ties with Russia in the wake of the latter’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as its efforts to seek improved relations with China.

Such moves seem to reflect Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan’s desire to establish the country’s independence through shifting foreign policy. He now appears to be seeking to maintain what experts have dubbed a “balancing act” between its relations with the West, Russia, and China.

“Turkey is seeking alternatives. It does not want to leave its NATO membership. It does not want to shed its European aspirations. But it wants to diversify its set of alliances, hedge its bets, so to speak,” Asli Aydintaşbaş, a visiting fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, told France 24. “It no longer sees its NATO membership to be the sole identity, its sole foreign policy orientation.”

Aydintaşbaş said that Erdogan saw successful strategy as having “a foot in different camps,” adding that he wanted to “be able to play off the West against Russia, the West against China.”

“I think that he has come to skillfully play this geopolitical act,” she said, but noted that he had sometimes pushed his “geopolitical balancing” too far.

One particular flash point came when Turkey acquired the Russian S-400 air-defense system in 2019, instead of NATO-made equivalents.

In 2020, the US said it had repeatedly made it clear to Turkey that the purchase of the S-400 system “would endanger the security of U.S. military technology and personnel and provide substantial funds to Russia’s defense sector, as well as Russian access to the Turkish armed forces and defense industry.”

Turkey’s decision to push ahead with the deal eventually led to it being kicked out of the US’s F-35 program, as well as a number of US sanctions.

Nevertheless, Bulent Aliriza, a senior associate of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told B-17 that he did not think that BRICS was “going to compete with NATO and with Turkey’s other Western links.”

“But it is a statement of, I would say, unhappiness with some aspects of their relationship with the West,” he said. “Even if Turkey does join BRICS, I do not believe it is going to lead to a fundamental redefinition of Turkey’s relationship with the West.”

Yusuf Can, the Coordinator for the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, has also argued that Turkey’s “strategic diversification should not alarm NATO allies,” saying that they “could benefit from a partner” in such circles.

“Understanding and collaborating with Turkey’s perspective can enhance US and NATO relations with Turkey, irrespective of potential administrative changes in Ankara,” Can wrote in an article for the Wilson Center.

Can noted that an improved US-Turkey partnership could also help secure crucial strategic regions, such as the Black Sea — which has been at the center of the Russia-Ukraine war.

“Economically, strengthened US-Turkey relations can benefit the EU by fostering investments in new trade routes,” Can added.

Aliriza agreed that the West could find a way to benefit from the situation.

Speaking about Turkey’s potential BRICS membership, Aliriza told B-17: “It doesn’t necessarily have to become a problem for the West, but it can, in fact, benefit the West if Turkey and its Western partners can have an open and honest dialogue about how to move forward.”

“It still remains a member of the Council of Europe. Most of its trade is still with the West. And in terms of investment, although there’s been a lot of speculation that there might be Chinese investment in Turkey, most of the foreign investment in Turkey, either FDI or short-term funds coming in seeking profit from high interest rates, has come from the West,” he said.

For its part, the US has remained relatively quiet following the news that Turkey’s BRICS ambitions may be inching forward, which Aydintaşbaş said was likely a savvy move aimed at avoiding a public dispute.

“Washington is keeping quiet,” she told France 24. “It does not want a public, high-profile spat with Turkey, and it knows that President Erdogan is unpredictable.”

The BRICS group is set to hold a summit in Kazan, Russia, from October 22 to 24.