Erdogan fails to drive wedge between France and Algeria

Mohamed Yosry

Algeria hosted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on January 27 against the backdrop of Ankara’s insistence that this step be taken to compensate for the failure of its president to reach satisfactory results during his earlier visit to Tunisia, which he had relied on to take part in an axis or alliance to ensure he achieves his economic and expansionist ambitions in Libya.

Erdogan tried to tempt Algeria with economic incentives to be the alternative to Tunisia, as he lost there, and he took 150 businessmen with him, pointing out in his speech during his reception in Algeria that he has a large base of businessmen in Algeria, in an indication that he intends to tamper with the economy as a tool to pressure the North African country.

But the Algerian reaction was disappointing to Erdogan, who dreams of putting his feet in Libya and the heart of Africa. Algiers stressed that it will not risk bias towards the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) and will not join any axis or alliance that pushes it to interfere in Libyan affairs directly, adding that it will remain neutral. This angered the Turkish president and made him strike back at Algeria by driving a wedge between it and France, while at the same time gaining a point for himself at the expense of Paris and the European Union in general.

Stirring strife between France and Algeria

After Erdogan returned to Turkey, he thought about how to embarrass Algeria and implicate it in a new crisis with Europe, specifically with France. The Turkish Anadolu Agency published a statement from Erdogan saying that Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had informed him that France had been responsible for killing five million Algerians.

Erdogan asked the Algerian president to provide him with documents related to these “massacres” so that the French president can respond, according to statements quoted by Anadolu. This raises the question: What is the purpose of these statements and why now?

Erdogan is attempting to blackmail France and Europe in exchange for them turning a blind eye to one of the major issues facing Turkey in its bid for accession to the European Union – namely, the massacres of Armenians. On April 24, 2019, France first celebrated the anniversary of the genocide committed by the Ottoman forces against the Armenians during World War I, which was officially recognized in 2001. In fulfillment of an election promise, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the selection of April 24 as his country’s national day to commemorate the “Armenian genocide”.

Thus, Erdogan’s attempt to obtain Algerian documents on the era of the French occupation of Algeria at that time is only in response to this French recognition, as an attempt to bargain and blackmail Paris to withdraw its recognition of the Armenian genocide, which stands in the way of Ankara’s accession to the European Union.

The second objective relates to Algeria, as he seeks to provoke strife between it and France after the official Algerian refusal to be part of the Turkish axis to achieve economic and political hegemony over Libya and North Africa. These attempts have been recognized by Algeria, which issued a statement from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirming that it was surprised by the Turkish president’s statements, noting that the Algerian president’s conversation with Erdogan deviated from the context.

The statement, quoted by the Algerian Press Service (APS), said, “In order to clarify, Algeria stresses that the complicated issues related to the national memory, which have special sanctity with the Algerian people, are very sensitive issues. Such statements do not contribute to the efforts made by Algeria and France to solve them.”