Turkey Turns to Taliban, But There is no More Airport Deal to Salvage

Turkey's offer in June to guard and manage the international airport in the Afghan capital was a unique opportunity for Ankara to build leverage over the United States, the European Union and NATO.

However, since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan first made the offer to his US counterpart, Joe Biden, on June 7, the Taliban's rapid ascendancy in Afghanistan has for all intents and purposes killed the Turkish leader's plan.

Erdogan's subsequent August 11 offer to meet Taliban leaders in Turkey was an attempt to salvage his deal with Biden, but the move has intensified the Turkish public's vocal opposition to the Turkish president's Afghanistan policy.

At the outset, Erdogan's Afghanistan deal appeared to promise a high return on investment for the Turkish government. As Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on June 23, Ankara did not commit to deploying additional troops to Afghanistan besides the 500 already stationed there.

Turkey reportedly was not willing to take on any combat mission outside the airport and refused to provide security for diplomatic convoys shuttling between Kabul's foreign missions and the airport.

Furthermore, Erdogan demanded "diplomatic, logistic and financial" assistance from Washington. In exchange, the Turkish president hoped that he would extract more favourable treatment from the Biden administration, which had given him the cold shoulder during its first five months in office and called out Ankara's human rights violations at home and it destabilising foreign and security policy abroad.

Taliban not on board People struggle to cross the boundary wall of Hamid Karzai International Airport to flee the country after rumours that foreign countries are evacuating people even...