For thirteen years, Hakan Fidan remained in the shadow of his protector, always present, there when necessary, in meetings, behind the scenes and in formal photos, but at a safe distance. When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled abroad, accompanied by his foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, he was the other man in the delegation, a prince of political darkness, as efficient as he was discreet.
Today head of Turkish diplomacy, Hakan Fidan has never spoken much, but when he headed the Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (MIT), the Turkish intelligence services, his voice carried no less. He had the ear of the Head of State. To the point that he was presented as the most powerful political leader in the country after his mentor. The faithful of the faithful, long in charge of the base works of the regime, and possible successor to the president. Didn’t the latter one day affirm, in an eloquent formula, that he was “his black box” ?
So when re-elected Recep Tayyip Erdogan throws his name into the limelight by putting him in charge of the foreign ministry, the decision comes as no surprise. For a long time already, we have been talking about him in this position. As head of intelligence, Hakan Fidan handled the burning issues of the Middle East. It was he who prepared the ground for the resumption of relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He, much more than his now predecessor Cavusoglu, who led negotiations with Libya and also Syria with which President Erdogan is trying to reconnect through Moscow.
Strategic autonomy
In front of the press, during the handover ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on June 5, Hakan Fidan said: “I will pursue the national vision of foreign policy. » Ankara has for years defended a diplomacy based on the concept of strategic autonomy, aimed at determining independently, without external influence or constraint, its own policy on the international scene. A frame that fits like a glove to this skilful jack-of-all-trades.
In London, on June 21, at the international conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine, Hakan Fidan affirmed that “Turkey is determined to guarantee the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea, the former homeland of the Tatar Turks”. The precision says a lot about the degree of involvement of the Turkish government in the Ukrainian file. During a meeting in the British capital with the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, whom he has met many times in the past, the new minister gives him “thank you Tony”.
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