On October 18, 2014, Recep Tayyip Erdogan reached Kabul on his one-day trip. In last five decades it is the first trip of a Turkish president to Afghanistan, which never happened after 1958 up to this trip. Due to the mentioned reason and the reason of special preparation program for his trip, have granted value to Erdogan’s trip. And after the inauguration of the new government, Erdogan was the first foreign high-ranking official that had trip to Kabul.
The reason for the loss of strong relationship between Afghanistan and Turkey, during the Cold War, may be that Turkey joined Pakistan and the West in the Cold War, but Afghanistan remained neutral. But during the Afghan Jihad, Turkey supported Afghans and did not intervene in the Afghan Civil War, and in last few years Former President Hamid Karzai, to some extent, rebuilt the relationship of Afghanistan and Turkey.
The Value of Erdogan’s Trip to Kabul
In this trip, Erdogan signed strategic agreement between the two countries with President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, which will strengthen mutual relationship.
Since 2007 Turkey held 7 trilateral conferences among the high-ranking officials of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey for resolving the crisis between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and due to its good relationship with the neighboring countries of Afghanistan, Turkey had an active role in those trilateral conferences. The conference of China, which will be held on October 28 of the current year, is also counted as one of the attempts of Turkey for improvement of Afghan-Pakistani relationship.
On the other hand, Turkey is also counted as one of the strategic alliances of Pakistan in the region and one of the countries that has significant influence on Pakistan, so there is a hope that Turkey will play a significant rule in solving the issues between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and will also have influential role in the peace and stability of the country. President Erdogan, in his trip to Afghanistan, mentioned that he will try to improve the relationship of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Some analysts believe that the national security advisor of Pakistan Sartaj Aziz’s trip to Afghanistan was also one of the diplomatic attempts of Turkey for the peace and stability of the region and improvement of the relationship of the two countries.
Overall we can say that Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s trip to Afghanistan was valuable due to various aspects. As Afghanistan and Turkey has political, economic, and cultural mutual relationships in history, so it causes the relationship of the two countries to be strengthened. Due to the mentioned historical, and cultural relationship of these two countries, Turkey can play a significant role in the peace, security, stability of Afghanistan.
Peace and Economy
Turkey is the first Islamic state that has the membership of NATO. Though their armed forces were there in Afghanistan in last ten years, but their view toward Afghanistan is completely different from that of other members of NATO, and their army did not participate in battle fields. Due to the mentioned reason, Turkish forces did not face military loss in Afghanistan.
The Taliban also had a different view toward Turkish forces, and many times they released Turkish forces for goodwill. On one hand, though Turkey has deeply economic, commercial, and cultural relationship with Afghanistan; on the other hand, to some extent they have good relationship with the armed Taliban, and count their group separate from the Al Qaida network. Therefore, Former President Hamid Karzai counted Turkey as a reasonable place for peace negotiation with the Taliban, but due to some other reasons, they have chosen Qatar as the center for peace negotiation. Overall, three countries in the region can play the role of mediation between the Afghan Government and its armed forces, those are namely Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan.
Afghans looks toward two countries (Turkey and China) as respectful countries, though during Cold War China supported Maoists in Afghanistan, and the liberal generals of Turkey were also supporting General Dostum in the Afghan Civil War. But those supports were in a lower level, and now those countries felt those sensitiveness. Therefore Afghans are hopeful for the positive aspects of those countries, and they expect the role of the two countries in the fields of economic development, investment, and commercial relationship.
Though the new Afghan Government is greedy for the economic development in the country, but related to Turkey, it is much hopeful for the diplomatic plans for peace and stability in the country. Because Turkey is the Islamic state that is interested to peace in Afghanistan. Though on one hand, it has historical relationship with Afghanistan; on the other hand, it has good strategic relationship with Pakistan since last few decades. In last years, Turkey also attempted to play the role of mediate among the two countries, with the usage of its relationship with the two countries.