ANKARA: When Turkey took over the helm of the G20 this year, it hoped to promote an image of an emerging economic power forging a strategy to tackle sluggish global growth and giving low-income nations a stronger voice.
But as G20 finance ministers and central bankers meet in Ankara this week, such aspirations seem unlikely to be realized. Political upheaval at home and conflict on its borders have diverted its attention and left Turkey looking anything but a model emerging market.
Confidence in its $870 billion economy has taken a deep blow this year, after a June election deprived the ruling AK Party of the ability to govern alone for the first time in more than a decade, and resurgent violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast left a three-year peace process near to collapse.
A suicide bombing in the town of Suruc on the Syrian border in July, blamed on Islamic State, meanwhile served as reminder of the proximity of war. Turkish fighter jets have since joined the U.S.-led coalition in bombing raids across the border.
With economic growth slowing and the lira currency plunging to record lows, business leaders and investors are already describing 2015 as a “lost year” for the Turkish economy, leaving G20 ambitions low on the agenda.
There isn’t much bandwidth for planning how to use the G20 presidency to achieve clear goals,” said Jonathan Friedman, a Turkey analyst at London-based risk consultancy Stroz Friedberg, noting that Ankara’s domestic turmoil had taken a severe toll on its international standing
Turkey’s soft power has declined so rapidly over the last two years. Turkey doesn’t have the same credibility on the G20 stage as it would have had a couple of years back,” he said.
Concern about the state of China’s economy and worries about the Greek financial crisis will be high on the minds of the finance ministers and central banks when they meet in Ankara on Friday and Saturday.
At their first meeting under the Turkish presidency in February, the ministers sketched an uncertain outlook for global growth, with major economies running at different speeds and monetary policies diverging.
But as the global economy has worsened, Turkey looks unlikely to be able to play a more decisive role, especially since the man originally tasked with coordinating the G20 presidency, Ali Babacan, is no longer the deputy prime minister, nor a member of the cabinet.
Babacan was replaced last week when Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was forced to form a temporary, power-sharing cabinet after his AK Party failed to find a junior coalition partner following the loss of its single-party majority in June.
