UN vote shows the intentions of our adversaries

Turkey failed in its bid to win a seat as a non-permanent member on the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) in a three round battle with Spain. In the first balloting Turkey managed to win 109 votes against 121 for Spain. In the second round of balloting Spain got 120 votes while Turkey managed to win only 73 votes. The third and last round saw 132 U.N. members opt for Spain and only 60 for Turkey.

Of course there will be those who will lambast the government labeling this as a major defeat for the Ahmet Davutoğlu government and the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan administration. Some will try to point out that the vote has shown the failures of the government's foreign policy. All will be wrong.

Is this a major defeat for Turkey? Is it a setback for Turkish diplomacy? Not really. There are too many factors affecting such votes, especially when they are held at the U.N., and thus no one should try to read too much into this result in the form of diplomatic performance or judge the international standing of the Turkish government.

However, we do feel that the vote should be an eye opener for Turkey. Despite the intensive efforts of Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and the hard work put in by the Foreign Ministry team, Turkey has not been able to win a seat on the UNSC. So who were the adversaries that played a role in this outcome? Çavuşoğlu has given us some hints that if Turkey had not stuck to its principles of opposing oppressive regimes and military juntas and not stood up to the injustices being carried out in the four corners of the world it may have won the vote comfortably.

We saw published reports from the U.S. after the vote, which say the failure of Turkey to win a seat on the UNSC is a "tremendous upset" that has exposed "Ankara's contentious frictions with some of its neighbors and world powers." Western press outlets have quoted diplomatic sources as saying there was an intense campaign led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia against Turkey's membership. They claim both countries are angered by President Erdoğan's support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

There are also reports that Syria and Iran also lobbied against Turkey as they are irked by the continued drive by Ankara for the ouster of the Assad regime in Damascus. We are told that while Turkey was considered a favorite to win the seat after Çavuşoğlu hosted a "posh party" for diplomats at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, something happened between then and the U.N. vote that steered the votes to Spain. Only days ago, Turkey received letters from 160 U.N. member countries declaring their support for Turkey.

We are also told that Western countries are being fed information that Turkey is actually attacking Kurds fighting the militants of the ISIS. We are also told Greece, Turkey's perennial adversary, has also lobbied intensely to stall Ankara.

Now is the time to look back and see what happened to us at the U.N. and where we have to do some fine tuning. We have to fight back against our adversaries but also try to explain to our friends, who at times turn against us, our intentions and our views patiently and continuously.

Saudi Arabia has to see that Turkey is not an adversary or a country that wants to stir up trouble in the kingdom. But Saudi Arabia also has to understand that extremism in the Middle East sees no boundaries and that if countries like Turkey, which are the real barriers to stop the radicals are incapacitated and weakened, it will only mean more trouble for them.

Western powers have to see that a strong Turkey with a seat on the UNSC would have been an asset thanks to its powerful standing in the Middle East and its strategically important location. Turkey is not attacking anyone in its region including Kurds despite the incredible provocations of its own Kurdish extremists who have tried and failed to sabotage the domestic peace process with them. On the contrary, Turkey has opened its doors to all of the Kurds fleeing Syria and has protected them. But the vote on non-permanent membership on the UNSC has been very useful. We can see who are friends and who are foes and we can also observe what our adversaries are up to.