Last week I wrote an essay for Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), about how the Turkish policy towards the war in Ukraine reflects recent Turkish policy towards Russian interventions elsewhere, particularly in Syria and Libya.
From that very current starting point, however, I also wanted to stitch this subject into a wider explanation of something much less discussed, that is Turkish policy towards those revolutions known as the Arab Spring.
You could write an entire book on this very important issue, and it will feature increasingly in my forthcoming writing, but this essay makes for a good and hopefully accessible starting point.
At root is a question of how Western states address democracy movements in West Asia and North Africa. The relative favourability of Gulf and Israeli government reactions towards Russia since its invasion, and meanwhile the comparative or considerable support that Turkey and Iran have offered to the Ukrainian position, is furthermore an interesting case of the extent to which the Ukraine situation is revealing a certain incompatibility between Western priorities, stated values, and regional alliances as they presently stand.
This subject is one I mean to write about in the coming months, but for now I hope this outline of the Turkish position on Ukraine, and its wider meaning, can be of some help in understanding recent events.