Erdogan under pressure: Arab boycott of Turkey intensifies

This is how the creators turned around: While the State of Israel is being recognized by several Arab countries, an Arab boycott is being formulated over Turkey, under the Islamist leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Leading the boycott process, which mainly includes raising tariffs and levies on products made in Turkey, is Saudi Arabia, which is in a diplomatic war on influence in the Middle East against Ankara and its ally Qatar. At stake is control over Mediterranean resources, what is happening in Libya and Syria, and influence in other Arab countries.

The Saudis do not even bother to hide the boycott and even add their own shade of insult to it. Large supermarket chains in the country, with a population of 34 million, almost overnight replaced the range of Turkish products in the Gado basket with consumer goods from Greece, Turkey’s rival in conflict with it following a dispute over maritime borders in the Mediterranean.

Large supermarkets in Riyadh showcased Greek flags alongside the new products and even increased to make the fast food chain “Harpi Burger” when it replaced the Turkish hamburger dish with a Greek hamburger that includes a blue bun in the colors of the Greek flag.

But to Ankara’s dismay, the emerging boycott did not stop in Saudi Arabia. Morocco announced this week a sudden and significant increase in tariffs and levies on goods and goods from Turkey. Morocco claims that the new restrictions on Turkish goods and networks are part of a “re-examination of the imbalance in the country’s trade agreements”, but for the diplomatic community the direction is clear.

Tunisia, formerly an important ally of Turkey in North Africa, has also begun enacting similar regulations and Algeria has begun strict control over goods and goods from Turkey, causing huge delays in the shipment of goods. There are now growing fears in Ankara that Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are also planning a similar move against Turkish goods.

Arab countries are one of the largest markets for goods made in Turkey, a country whose economy relies heavily on the production of consumer goods for the countries around it and the data indicate severe damage to the sale of goods from Turkey to the Arab world. According to data from the Turkish Export Council, exports to Saudi Arabia fell by 16% from January to August of this year, compared to last year.

The figures are similar in other Arab countries. The rate of purchase of Turkish goods in Algeria fell by almost thirty percent, in Bahrain by 17 percent and in Morocco by 13 percent. In some Arab countries there has been a significant drop in the volume of purchases due to the corona crisis and the economic price it has charged, but the Turkish Export Council believes that a large part of the damage is a result of Riyadh’s policy. This is human damage to the Turkish economy, which is still struggling with a crisis and inflation such as the state has not known for more than three decades.

Criticism of Erdogan’s rule in Turkey itself in the wake of the crisis was not long in coming. Randa Matah, Turkey’s former ambassador to the OECD, told the economic newspaper Dunia that Turkey must change direction in relation to the countries around it. “Our command channels must remain open in any situation. We cannot reach a situation where we can only talk to Qatar in the Arab world,” the diplomat and economist said.