The EconomistAugust 1st 2020 Middle East & Africa 372 for 145km along their border.
Mr Erdogan is also battling the pkkin
the Kurds’ autonomous region in northern
Iraq. Turkey says it has “neutralised” over
1,400 Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria this
year. Sometimes the Turks have attacked
200km inside Iraq. They insist it is a short-
term operation aimed only at the pkk, but
they have set up a number of new outposts
in the country. Many suspect their aim is to
carve out a buffer zone along the border, as
they did in Syria. Iraq’s Kurds fear a Turkish
presence would endanger their aspirations
for statehood and, if it extends far enough,
cut them off from the Kurds in Syria.
Turkey’s intervention in Libya is differ-
ent. The countries of the eastern Mediter-
ranean have long argued over who controls
which part of the sea—and the gasfields be-
neath it. Mr Erdogan feared that an alliance
of Egypt, Israel, Greece and Cyprus might
squeeze Turkey out of the area. So last year
he signed a deal with Libya’s un-backed
government that demarcated their mari-
time boundaries and supposedly gave Tur-
key the right to drill in waters off Greek is-
lands. (Greece is having none of it.) In
return Turkey has provided troops, arms,
drones and mercenaries (from Syria) to the
Libyan government and its allied militias,
tipping the war in their favour. Earlier this
year the forces of Khalifa Haftar, a rebel-
lious Libyan general, were pushed out of
western Libya.
Turkey is now a force to be reckoned
with along a 600-km stretch of the Medi-
terranean. It controls an airbase in al-Wa-
tiya, close to Libya’s border with Tunisia.
Its frigates protect Libya’s coast in the west.
Some say Mr Erdogan is trying to turn the
eastern Mediterranean into a Turkish sea.
He is active elsewhere, too. He has in-
stalled a Turkish garrison in Qatar, an ally
and fellow backer of Islamist movements
that has been threatened by Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates (uae). He has
also shown an interest in Yemen’s civil war,
offering Turkey as a safe haven for the Is-
lamists fighting on behalf of the exiled
president, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. (He
may do the same for Mr Hadi if Saudi Arabia
grows tired of hosting him.) Across the Red
Sea, in Sudan, Turkey is hoping to develop
Suakin, a ruined Ottoman port. And it has
established its largest overseas base in
Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
Does Turkey have staying power? Its
armed forces may already be stretched
thin, having lost thousands of officers to
show trials and purges in the past decade.
And its adventurism isn’t cheap. Its opera-
tions in Syria alone cost up to $3bn a year,
says Nihat Ali Ozcan of tepav, a think-tank.
But Mr Erdogan focuses on the benefits.
Qatar, for example, has gone on an invest-
ment spree in Turkey. Earlier this year it
helped shore up the weakening lira by tri-
pling its currency-swap agreement with
Turkey to $15bn. It may also be helping to
pay for the operation in Libya, where Tur-
key expects to win new contracts when
peacetime reconstruction resumes.
There is a domestic political benefit for
Mr Erdogan, too. His attacks on the Kurds
and posturing in the Mediterranean have
delighted the nationalists who are his al-
lies in parliament. They, in turn, have in-
fluence over the police and army.But the going could get tougher. Egypt
has mobilised its forces on Libya’s border
and vows to cross it if Turkey advances fur-
ther. Saudi Arabia and the uae, staunch
anti-Islamists, would probably back Egypt.
Russia is also on the opposing side in Lib-
ya—and in Syria, where it is believed to
have killed dozens of Turkish troops in
February. Mr Erdogan may soon feel he has
bitten off more than he can chew. 7T
helifeguardssweatinginmasks
and latex gloves sometimes looked in
need of rescue themselves. For much of
the week it was 42°Cin the midday sun,
with the palpable humidity making it
seem hotter. One afternoon’s sunbathing
was interrupted by a sandstorm that
turned the sky grey. “It’s like a dream,”
grins a Dutch woman sipping a cocktail
by the pool, her ice long since melted.
In normal times jetting off to Dubai in
July is an act of masochism. Summer
weather is hot enough to bake cookies on
a parked car (as YouTube videos prove).
Citizens and well-paid expats flee to
cooler climes. Five-star hotel rooms that
cost 1,000 dirhams ($272) a night in high
season go for a third of that.
These are not normal times. Dubai
allowed tourists back on July 7th, one of
the first destinations to open its doors
after covid-19 slammed them shut. Visi-
tors are welcome from anywhere with
only a coronavirus test; from August 1st
arrivals from hard-hit countries will
need two. Officials call it a calculated
risk: their economy needs travellers. LastyearDubaitookin17mtourists,whose
spending made up 12% of gdp.
Tourists are not exactly flooding in
yet. A rental-car clerk at the airport signs
up only one customer a day. Most hotel
guests are residents on “staycations”.
Still, a trickle of foreign visitors desper-
ate for a trip—a diplomat posted in Ban-
gladesh, a group of women from Uk-
raine—arrived in July to endure the heat.
Masks are mandatory in public, with a
3,000-dirham fine for scofflaws. Some
hotels have done away with valet park-
ing, making guests walk (quelle horreur!)
to car parks. Diners may be shamed into
skipping a fourth round of crab legs at
lavish buffets that are no longer self-
service. Bars may serve alcohol only with
meals, ostensibly to stop people from
lingering in high-risk settings (in prac-
tice a lonely bowl of edamame can suf-
fice as a “meal”). At the door to a seaside
Mexican restaurant, a British couple
wondered if their lobster-pink sunburns
would trip the infrared thermometers
used to check diners’ temperatures.
The United Arab Emirates (uae), of
which Dubai is a part, has logged about
60,000 cases of covid-19. At 6,000 per 1m
people it ranks in the top quintile of all
countries. But the death toll, at 35 per 1m,
is well below most Arab and European
countries’. Authorities say 90% of cases
are asymptomatic. The number may
reflect one of the world’s best testing
regimes. As of July 29th the uaehad
conducted 4.9m tests, equal to nearly
half its population, the highest figure per
person bar tiny Luxembourg.
Still, other emirates are less gung-ho
about reopening. The airport in Abu
Dhabi, the uae’s capital, is shut to non-
residents. But Dubai feels its hospitals
can handle any imported cases. Emir-
ates, the national airline, offers free
health insurance for travellers who catch
covid-19. For holidays that do not quite
go to plan, the policy will stump up
€1,500 ($1,750) towards funeral costs.Viralvacations
Covid-era travel in the GulfDUBAI
A package deal to Dubai includes airfare, hotel—and funeral insuranceSummertime, and the living is uneasy