Countries of Principles

While Hungary fully supports Israel in its war against Hamas, Turkey accepts Hamas as a liberation group not a terrorist organisation. Even though Hungary is the first EU country to open a trade office in Jerusalem, their trade is just about $0.5 billion. On the other hand Turkish trade with Israel is already quite enhanced and it is $8.9 billion

Last week, the President of Turkey and the prime minister of Hungary came together for the 6th meeting of the Türkiye-Hungary High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council and agreed to elevate bilateral relations from strategic partnership to “Enhanced Strategic Partnership” by signing a 17-article cooperation agreement. According to the Hungarian Prime minister Victor Orban the new partnership is the strongest relation in terms of friendship and brotherhood as he doesn't know anything beyond this in diplomatic terms. The enhanced agreement aims to increase bilateral trade from $4 billion to $6 billion and to strengthen ties further in areas such as defence industry and energy.

The two countries like to emphasise the “very strong” historical and cultural links between them, meaning most probably the central asian origins of the Magyars and the Turks, not the 170 years of Ottoman occupation. At least, the Hungarian prime minister must be thinking so as he gifted a beautiful horse to President Erdogan. The Turkish President is not known for his equestrian talents as he fell from a horse 20 years ago and was never seen to ride again. However commonalities between the two nations can be recognized easier in their warm relations with Russia and their delay on the ratification of Swedish membership to NATO. Both leaders leave the decision of the Swedish ratification to their parliaments as both countries are in principle democracies, and in practice their parliaments just confirm their decisions.

In principle, they also agree that violence is not a resolution to the wars in Palestine and Ukraine. Indeed, Hungary blocks EU financial aid to Ukraine which would definitely help in ending the war. Moreover several Turkish companies are sanctioned by the US for selling to Russia components that can be used in weapon manufacturing such as ball bearings, electronic integrated circuits and navigational aids.

On the other hand, while Hungary fully supports Israel in its war against Hamas, Turkey accepts Hamas as a liberation group not a terrorist organisation. Even though Hungary is the first EU country to open a trade office in Jerusalem, their trade is just about $0.5 billion. On the other hand Turkish trade with Israel is already quite enhanced and it is $8.9 billion. In addition, despite all the high volume criticism and condemnation of Israel, their  trade volume in November equals the yearly volume between Hungary and Israel.

This does not mean that Turkey does not apply any sanctions to Israel. Turkish people buy in bulk a soft drink which is believed to be an Israeli product and dump it on the streets. The remaining products are of course boycotted or forced to be boycotted. Moreover a coffeehouse franchise which is believed to be affiliated with the Jews is also targeted and its customers are intimidated to spill their coffee and quit the premises. 

During the Russian war of principle to convince Ukrainians that they are actually Russians, Turkey supplied Ukraine with Bayraktar drones and made both the advertisement of its product and also showed its adherence to the Western values. Unfortunately, principles did not allowTurkey to fully participate in the sanctions. Instead, imports of discounted Russian oil and refined products help the struggling Turkish economy. It is estimated that the Turkish economy will save around $2 billion on energy bills in 2023.

The trade between the countries is in deficit for Turkey as its imports from Russia is about $58 billion. However from the beginning of the war, Turkish exports to Russia have increased by 88%. This good news unfortunately has a bitter side. The US is suspicious that Turkish exports of dual use goods that can be also used in the production of cruise missiles, drones, and helicopters are also increased. The suspicion doesn't make Turkey the major supplier as China provides 80% of critical goods to the Russian market but several Turkish companies and individuals are already sanctioned by the US. Despite this on November 25, Turkey and Russia declared to increase the total volume of trade to $100 billion.

Already, the egg crisis in Russia gave a big opportunity for a step towards this aim. Russian news agency TASS announced that the first Turkish companies started exporting chicken eggs to Russia. According to the agency, Turkey is annually producing about 70 million chicken eggs and ranks ninth globally. That is good news for Turkey but a bad one for Turkish people because according to this information, as their population is 84.78 million, they already had less than an egg a year per person and  now they will have to eat even less. 

One wonders, in which world we would live,  if the countries of principle did not have any principle.