It is still not entirely certain that Turkey will support outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte as NATO Secretary General. Rutte came to Istanbul specifically for this on Friday, on a flight that he had paid for, but he did not want to say what the outcome of his conversation with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was. He said only that the meeting had been “very positive.”
Erdogan also left unclear in a statement afterwards whether Rutte could count on Turkey’s support and started talking about the other candidate for secretary general: Romanian President Klaus Johannis. Erdogan had also talked to him on the phone last week. At the request, he said, of Johannis.
Turkey’s support could be decisive for Rutte: if he gets it, there seems little chance that the job at the alliance will elude him. Of the 32 member states, only Turkey, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania have not yet voted in favor of Rutte.
Johannis’ phone call to Erdogan shows that he would like to have another chance at NATO, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán does not appear to have given up his opposition to Rutte as NATO boss. That could change if Turkey were to openly speak out about Rutte. But Erdogan does not want that yet. He did say: “No one should doubt that we will make our decision with strategic wisdom and in a fair manner.”
Rutte was in a hurry
For example, Rutte appears to be being kept on a string by Erdogan for the time being. He had been in Istanbul all Friday and was only able to see the president at the very end of the afternoon. The conversation lasted 35 minutes. Erdogan first made an appearance on Friday afternoon at a conference of Turkish parliamentarians on Gaza, where he criticized the role of the West there. That meeting lasted longer than planned.
But Rutte was in a hurry, his plane back to the Netherlands left at the beginning of the evening. He had previously decided that he would pay for the flight for himself and his closest colleague, because it was about his personal ambition.
Rutte’s visit gave Erdogan a public show of respect. That is exactly what Turkey wants more of in NATO. It has been a member since 1952, has the second largest army in the alliance with 425,000 soldiers, and yet there is a prevailing feeling in Ankara that Western countries have the upper hand in NATO. Rutte seemed to realize this on Friday and emphasized several times how important he finds Turkey for NATO.
Rutte also said afterwards that he had made no promises to Erdogan in exchange for support. Erdogan himself made it very clear in his statement what he wanted: he believes that other NATO countries should pay more attention to the strategic interests and security of his country. Especially when it comes to Turkey’s struggle, which has been going on for decades, against the PKK, the Kurdish movement that is on the terror list of Turkey, the EU and the US, but which Turkey believes has far too much room for maneuver in the West.
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Looking into the eyes
The fact that Erdogan wanted Rutte at the table with him also has to do with the way in which the Turkish president conducts politics. For him, international politics is also about personal relationships, where leaders look each other in the eye and can address each other on promises that have been made, and about the honor that is at stake.
Mark Rutte finds personal relationships at least as important, but unlike Erdogan, he seems to have no problem making himself small and, above all, giving a lot to others. He comes to Istanbul to beg for support for his candidacy, cap in hand, and has to go home without a commitment. But if anyone can pretend that this is the most normal thing in the world for a prime minister, it is Rutte.
Just before getting in the car to the airport, he said he was “not disappointed,” no. What Turkey was still waiting for? “I can’t tell you that, that’s the confidentiality of the conversation.” He also definitely wanted to come back to Turkey and suddenly acted as if his new job had come a little closer: “If I were Secretary General, I would definitely come. And given the slowness of the Dutch cabinet formation, there is a good chance that I will otherwise come again as Prime Minister.”
In Sweden they know what it means if Erdogan does not make a decision yet. He kept that country on the line for a long time about their desired membership of NATO, and increasingly increased his demands for approval. Rutte may also have to deal with this.
But did he also board the plane with those doubts? Erdogan had him a few times “dostum” called, “my comrade”, and at the end of his statement, with a big grin, he wished him “good luck” on his “new path”. Erdogan’s advisers, in the front row, laughed.
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