New Delhi, Aug 31 (IANS) Turkey considers itself to be a bridge connecting continents. This is a good image for its connection with Southeast Asia, except that it focuses more on the land and its two extremes while neglecting the waters filled with container vessels, oil tankers and undersea cables, according to an article in India Narrative.
These ships and cables are already connecting Turkey and Southeast Asia. Only Turkey policy is yet to catch up with that reality, states the article by Mehmet Enes Beşer.
The article highlights that around 96 per cent of the roughly 10 million containers moving between China and Europe each year travel by sea. For a relationship with Southeast Asia, maritime transport is not the alternative route. It is the main one. None of this diminishes the value of rail. It simply means that a continental map cannot explain a relationship whose commercial life depends so heavily on shipping.
The report also points out that Ankara’s bureaucracy is another problem. The first department deals with Southeast Asia, while the second works in the Gulf or East Africa; energy officials monitor the suppliers, the transport officials work with the ports, trade officials focus on the customs, and the digital agencies on the cables. Ships do not recognise such divisions.
There is no need to create another large institution. The coordination machinery already established under Asia Anew could maintain a small Indian Ocean working track that includes both public agencies and commercial operators. Its first task should be to map Turkey’s real exposure along the route: the ports and transshipment hubs it relies on, the location of major cable paths, energy flows and the insurance risks that arise at each chokepoint.
The same entity might select two or three port-to-port projects from ASEAN partners and set realistic goals on issues like electronic documentation, cold chains, data exchange or greener transport.
Submarine cables carry more than 99 per cent of international data traffic, and the International Telecommunication Union describes the Red Sea as a key cable route where access constraints can delay repairs.
This gives Turkey and ASEAN a concrete digital agenda. Most cables are privately owned, so governments will not manage the networks themselves. They can still remove regulatory delays and make it easier for repair vessels to work, said the report.
Turkey’s “Indian Ocean strategy” with an impressive brand will hardly get much resonance in ASEAN. Being helpful instead of showing off is the best way for the country to be of use – assisting ports in their operation, providing technical know-how and helping regional institutions without making each project an announcement of great-power competition, the article points out.
–IANS
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