In 2008, it had won 151 votes out of 193 members of the United Nations to win easily a coveted non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council [UNSC]. With that seat, Turkey would further reinforce its influence in the region and the world.
After Turkey won the Security Council seat, then Foreign Minister (now Deputy Prime Minister) Ali Babacan spoke like a Rolls Royce: "This is the product of our efforts during the last five years. The election is an indication that Turkey's global perception, visibility and influence are on the rise. It shows how positively Turkey is perceived by the international community."
Fine. When a country wins a UNSC seat for the first time after 47 years, it is normal that politicians claim credit. But by simple logic, if it had lost the contest in 2008, the defeat should have meant that "Turkey's global perception, visibility and influence were on decline;" how negatively Turkey was being perceived by the international community. Right? Right. Not in the Turkish psyche.
On Oct. 16, Turkey once again bid for the same seat it had won six years earlier. A day before the vote, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu declared to journalists in New York: "We believe, Allah permitting, that we will get the [positive] result of the work we put in."
Allah did not permit. Turkey won merely 60 votes -- compared to 151 in 2008 -- and was defeated by New Zealand and Spain. Does that mean that Turkey is now being negatively perceived by the international community? Or that Turkey's global perception, visibility and influence are on decline? Of course not!
Cavusoglu heroically defended the defeat: "There may be those that are disturbed by our principled stance." How lovely! In the Turkish Islamist thinking, the country's election to the UN Security Council is an acknowledgement of Turkey's success story but failure is the work of unprincipled nations who envy Turkey. Enjoy your Rover!
We're rock stars either way: In Turkish Islamist thinking, Turkey's election to the Security Council is acknowledgement of its success, but failure is the work of unprincipled nations who envy Turkey. Pictured above, then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the UN General Assembly in 2011. (Image source: UN)
It is an open secret in diplomatic circles in Ankara that several Arab and African countries in which Turkey has heavily invested -- both economically and politically -- over the past several years, lobbied against Turkey's UNSC bid. Another group of countries with decent democratic credentials preferred to vote for a country [Spain] with the same democratic credentials, instead of a country known by its alarmingly autocratic resume.