A Moral Dilemma: Should Armenia Send Disaster Aid to Earthquake-Stricken Turkey?

Armenia must choose the moral high ground, whether Turkey appreciates it or not. It has to live by its own values and should not allow Turkey — or for that matter any other party — to define Armenia. Armenia has to be defined by its own values. As part of the international community, it will be judged by its own policies, which is certainly in line with those of the civilized world.

The magnitude of this earthquake and the devastation in Turkey will certainly serve as a watershed for Erdogan’s maximalist policies in the region and around the world. Turkey and Azerbaijan will never change their political goals but the tremendous resources needed for the recovery will not sustain their ambitions.

All kinds of mercenaries, jihadists and criminal elements sheltered by Turkey for its foreign adventures have already gotten loose and are hampering the rescue activities of foreign groups and they will certainly turn against the Erdogan regime when he cannot control them.

The polls taken before the quake already indicated the declining popularity of Erdogan. The earthquake will certainly lower them further, because he will not be able to meet his deadline of reconstructing the disaster zone within a year.

The recovery effort will need a hefty sum of money from the Western world, particularly from the US, which in return will seek to tame Erdogan’s bullying tendencies, such as his blackmailing of NATO allies by blocking Finland and Sweden’s admission into that structure. Also, he will no longer be able to continue to spite his benefactors by cutting separate deals with Russia, compromising Western interests. Ankara’s policies will become more predictable and controllable as it becomes more dependent on the West.

What’s more, the earthquake has damaged Turkish oil facilities in Iskenderun, at least delaying plans to render Turkey an energy hub through cooperation with Russia.

A configuration of forces was emerging, bringing together Turkey, Azerbaijan and Israel to spark a conflict with Iran. Already Azerbaijan’s war rhetoric and Israel’s drone attacks against Iran have constituted a prelude to a major conflagration in the region, making Armenia so much collateral damage. That adventure would have to be tabled or postponed for an indefinite period, unless Israel goes it alone.

With Ankara’s support restricted and the stationing of European Union observers on Armenia’s borders, Azerbaijan’s belligerence will be contained for a while, allowing a respite for Armenia to recover and rearm (we hope). Ankara’s constant prodding was making Baku keep Armenia under the threat of imminent and perpetual war.

The earthquake will impact Turkey’s domestic politics as well, seriously damaging Erdogan’s chances of reelection on May 14. Either he has to postpone the elections or play a trick to turn away the wave of popular discontent emerging from the disaster. He is already blaming others for shoddy construction and has been touring affected areas with lavish promises of help, which he cannot afford. He has been jailing his critics and has been taking credit for all the foreign help.

The construction boom in the last 20 years seems to be Erdogan’s doom. Most of the contracts during that boom period were awarded to Erdogan’s cronies, who either took advantage of lax building codes or ignored them altogether. During that period, contractors bypassed building codes increasing benefits and putting residents at risk.

A video taken during the 2019 local elections in Marash shows Erdogan bragging that “We solved the problems of 144,150 citizens of Marash with zoning amnesty.”

In another stop in Hatay province, Erdogan announced, “We have solved the problems of 205,000 citizens in Hatay with zoning peace.”

The Turkish publication Duvar, as cited by Insider, writes, “Buğra Gökçe, the deputy secretary general of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, as saying that 294,165 buildings in the affected areas had taken advantage of” the 2018 construction amnesties, suspending tough earthquake zone building codes. Forty thousand of those certificates are in the hard-hit Gaziantep region.

The opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said, “If there is a person responsible for all this, it is Erdogan.”

The opposition is pulling together, seeing an opportunity to unseat Erdogan – something they could not have dared hope a month ago.

Erdogan is a crafty political survivor and it will be interesting to see if he will survive all this by applying his old methods. With or without Armenia’s help, Turkish politics will run their course.