Turkey looks to the east, ending EU flirtation

PRIME Minister Tayyip Erdogan has captivated many Arabs with his tough talk against Israel, but voices at home and abroad question his drive to carve out a leadership role for Turkey in an Arab world once under the Ottoman imperial thumb.

“A Palestinian child crying in Gaza wrenches a mother’s heart in Ankara,” Erdogan told the Arab League in Cairo yesterday, using language calculated to delight Arab masses.

His message of how Turks and Arabs twang to the same emotions would have seemed alien to a previous Turkey, friendly with its US military ally, keen to join the European Union and disdainful of a “backwards” Middle East on its doorstep.