The level of economic support offered by Saudi Arabia and the UAE will reflect the extent to which both countries are betting on long-term partnership with Ankara.
It shows the importance of Erdoğan for the Saudi Crown Prince. Saudi Arabia’s welcoming of his re-election is perceived as a necessary step to ensure the nurturing of Turkish-Saudi ties. This is particularly when Saudi Arabia has provided loans to Türkiye without any conditions. On the contrary, Riyadh has tightened its credit conditions for other struggling countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain.
The normalisation of Turkish-Emirati relations is swift and followed a clear path. It has now reached to the point that Abu Dhabi is buying and receiving shipments of Turkish drones. Türkiye has also entered into comprehensive economic partnership agreements with it. It shows UAE’s strategic commitment to a policy of solving existing problems by enhancing trade links with regional powers. But the pace of the recovery of Saudi-Turkish relations was slower. We expect a flow of more Saudi investments and broader trade activity between the two countries. Türkiyewill be more committed to meeting Saudi Arabia’s security needs, particularly those related to joint military industrialisation programmes.
However, the emerging Saudi-Turkish partnership cannot be seen as a rising regional axis or alliance, as geopolitical competition will remain latent in the relationship between the two countries, particularly with the broad rise of Türkiye’s role in regions which Saudi Arabia considers its main sphere of influence in the Middle East and the Islamic world.
[An Asbab Analysis]