Turkey Is Positioning Itself as the Switzerland of a New World Order – It’s Working.

During times of geopolitical chaos, a specific type of phone call is made: someone in Washington, Brussels, or Doha picks up the phone and calls Ankara. It occurs more frequently than it did in the past. Five years ago, the nation that was most frequently discussed was Turkey. These days, the nation is being discussed more and more. Watching that change take place has been one of the most bizarre narratives of this decade. It didn’t just happen.

Speaking to a hall of business confederation members in January, Erdogan stated unequivocally that Turkey would become one of the focal points of a “reshaped global order.” It sounded like the kind of statement presidents make in front of cameras. However, when the rhetoric is removed, something more difficult to ignore is revealed. Over the past two years, Turkey has quietly mediated between Russia and Ukraine, hosted prisoner swaps, mediated grain corridors, and entered Syria’s transition with a confidence that even seasoned diplomats were taken aback. The Erdogan administration might be exaggerating its influence. Perhaps it doesn’t.

Naturally, the Switzerland comparison seems flawed. Neutrality is sold in Switzerland. Access is sold in Turkey. Ankara appears to be more aware of the distinction than its detractors. Neutrality in any conventional sense is not demonstrated by a NATO member purchasing Russian air defense systems, a nation negotiating with Hamas while maintaining open lines of communication with Israeli intelligence, or a state that accommodates both Russian oligarchs and Ukrainian officials in its Bosphorus hotels. It’s more elusive, transactional, and difficult to describe.

In February, Philip Gordon, Kamala Harris’s former national security adviser, told reporters that Turkey now has “an important voice” as tensions over Greenland and other issues strain transatlantic relations. In American media, the comment went unnoticed, but in Ankara, it had a different effect. Turkish officials believe that the West is finally characterizing them in the same way that they have been characterizing themselves for some time. It remains to be seen if this recognition results in real leverage.

You can witness the choreography in real time by strolling through Istanbul’s diplomatic district on any given afternoon. Black sedans arrive at covert entrances. delegates coming from locations that, in theory, shouldn’t be in the same city, much less the same building. Through TIKA and the Yunus Emre Institute, the Foreign Ministry has greatly increased the scope of its public diplomacy operations, combining cultural projection with humanitarian aid. Yes, it is soft power, but it also has a sharp edge.

Turkish economists are aware of the dangers. For years, the lira has been in a state of slow motion. Budgets for households were devoured by inflation. The government is walking a tightrope between political backlash and negotiation as it moves forward with the “terror-free Türkiye” initiative against the PKK. Erdogan advised businesspeople to disregard the “economic hitmen” who are forecasting collapse—the kind of statements made by leaders when collapse is at least conceivable.

Nevertheless, a pattern is beginning to emerge. Turkey is placing a calculated wager that the nations most helpful in the upcoming years won’t be those who support a single bloc, as the world seems to be dividing itself into camps. They’ll have the most open doors. No one in Ankara has complete control over the factors that determine whether that wager is profitable. However, as this develops, it’s difficult to ignore how much of the discussion about the new global order keeps returning to a nation that was hardly discussed at all not too long ago.