Wang Qingsun: Where will Erdogan's "balance technique" lead in Russian-Turkish relations?
Behind the frequent exchanges and contacts between the Russian and Turkish leaders is the embodiment of a pluralistic and balanced policy that Turkey is trying to pursue. It became especially noticeable in many areas after the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.
Wang Qingsun (万青))
On July 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a working visit to Iran and took part in the trilateral talks of the Astana format on the settlement of the Syrian issue. Before the talks, Putin also held bilateral meetings with the leaders of Iran and Turkey.
This event is not only the first personal meeting of the leaders of the three countries since the outbreak of the epidemic, but also Putin's second foreign visit after the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. This trip coincided with the end of Joe Biden's working visit to the Middle East, so, naturally, it became the focus of public attention.
Although the media are hotly discussing Putin's visit to Iran, interpreting it as a "counterattack on Biden" and confirming America's words about Iran's preparation to "provide hundreds of drones to Russia," I believe that the talks between the leaders of Russia and Turkey deserve more attention. This is the first bilateral meeting of the presidents in almost a year, although dozens of phone calls have taken place between the two sides.
The reason is that the main agenda of Putin's visit to Iran this time is to quickly coordinate with Turkey the possibility of a new military operation in northern Syria, this operation will change the existing balance of power, which is obviously extremely unprofitable for Moscow with its current focus on the Ukrainian issue. In addition, the Turkish factor began to arise frequently in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, this was especially relevant in the issue of forming a "roadmap" for the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports, which requires face-to-face consultations between the presidents of Russia and Turkey.
Turkish technique of multipolar balance in the conditions of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict
The frequent exchanges and contacts between the Russian and Turkish leaders are actually the embodiment of the pluralistic and balanced policy that Turkey is trying to pursue, and it has become especially noticeable in many areas after the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
With regard to Russia and Ukraine, Turkey, on the one hand, has repeatedly stated its readiness to provide a platform for direct negotiations between the presidents and positioned itself as a mediator in the conflict. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly stated that Turkey is ready to mediate reconciliation between the two countries, and demonstrated to the West that it is an indispensable "mediator" in the settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. On the other hand, Turkey has been supporting Ukraine in every possible way since 2014, including strengthening military-technical cooperation between the two sides. Bayraktar attack drones delivered to Ukraine played an important role on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield and angered the Kremlin a lot. However, at the same time, Turkey has not stopped cooperation with Russia, emphasizing its desire to maintain good relations with all parties to the conflict.
On the issue of sanctions against Russia, Turkey is the only NATO member that does not participate in them. At a time when all the countries of the Alliance imposed strict restrictions on Moscow and closed their airspace to Russian aircraft, Turkey continues to maintain political relations with Russia, conduct business with it, and its skies are open to Russian civil aviation, and the country actively accepts Russian tourists. The press secretary of the Turkish president acknowledged that Ankara and Moscow are closely linked and that sanctions will cause Turkey more damage than Russia. Of course, Turkey's attitude to anti-Russian sanctions will also change over time in the face of the apparent stagnation of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, and the fact that the political dividends brought by mediation are becoming less and more problems, while the country's already difficult relations with the West are becoming even more complicated. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Turkey will join the sanctions only if the UN also imposes restrictions on Russia — this is obviously an attempt by Ankara to find an opportunity to "get out."
As for Russia's relations with NATO, on the one hand, Turkey used its rights under the Montreux Pact to close the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits and prohibit the passage of any warships into the Black Sea. This also means that there will be no American or British ships near the zone of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, if they do not want to violate international law. This is another important step in preventing the escalation of a direct conflict between Russia and NATO.
On the other hand, Turkey caught the moment when the West especially needed a show of solidarity, and used it as a trump card to join the negotiations between Sweden and Finland on joining NATO, expressing sharp dissatisfaction with Helsinki and Stockholm's support for "Kurdish separatists", but at the same time also not opposing the policy of "openness" of NATO and the "green light" at the last minute. At the same time, there are conditions and a "trial period" is proposed: if Turkey does not get what it wants, it will not approve the process of agreeing on the accession of Finland and Switzerland to NATO.
In relations with the United States, Ankara had the opportunity to hold personal talks with the American president, playing the "Sweden and Finland card", which prompted the Biden administration to unfreeze restrictions on arms exports to Turkey, which were once imposed due to the purchase of S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems from Russia during the reign of Donald Trump. Biden also agreed to sell Turkey 40 upgraded F-16 aircraft as compensation for Turkey's exclusion from the F-35 fighter program.
As for neighborly relations, first of all, let's look at the Middle East. After the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Turkey took the initiative to improve relations with its long-standing competitors in the Middle East. After successfully restoring ties with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel, Ankara is now trying to establish harmonious relations with Egypt. In addition, Turkey is also preparing for a gradual resumption of contacts with Syria, which also became an important background during the trilateral discussion of the Syrian issue between Russia, Iran and Turkey.
In the Caucasus region, even before the Ukrainian crisis, Turkey was deeply involved in the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which complicated the regional geopolitical and security situation. In the context of the crisis in Ukraine, Armenia is now actively seeking to normalize relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Turkey is also expanding its influence in Central Asia, including by participating in the Organization of Turkic States. After the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Ankara took the opportunity to further strengthen cooperation with Central Asian countries in many areas. President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was invited to visit Turkey for the first time, and the parties signed an investment agreement worth one billion dollars; as for the military industry, the Turkish aerospace company TUSAS will produce ANKA drones in Kazakhstan. Erdogan also strengthened bilateral economic, trade and military cooperation with Kyrgyzstan during his visit to the country, and Turkish Bayraktar attack drones were delivered to Kyrgyz border guards.
Erdogan's thoughts on domestic policy
Turkey is actively promoting multilateral and balanced diplomacy, clearly hoping to make full use of the current difficult international and regional situation to strengthen its global influence and hoping to become a powerful force in global affairs. However, Turkey's pluralistic and balanced diplomacy still serves the goals of its domestic policy.
The main driving force of Turkey's multilateral and balanced foreign policy is the growing economic crisis inside the country. According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, the domestic inflation rate has increased by 69.97% year-on-year since April, reaching a new high in the last 20 years. The devaluation of the Turkish lira has particularly exacerbated its economic difficulties, and Turkey needs more external resources to mitigate the crisis.
In addition, presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Turkey in 2023, and Erdogan is trying to win public and party support in order to go for a new term, but polls show that Turkey's economic difficulties have significantly affected the level of popular approval of Erdogan. The economic situation is grim, mass unemployment coupled with inflation, as well as measures such as the start of a military operation in Syria, are unlikely to save Erdogan's declining rating. Given the changes in the situation in the Middle East, especially the shift of the US diplomatic focus to the "Indo-Pacific region", relations between the United States and Middle Eastern countries have weakened quite a bit, which gives Turkey the opportunity to expand its diplomatic space.
At the same time, Russia is an important trade and economic partner of Turkey, and there are large-scale cooperation projects between them, such as the already operating Turkish Stream oil and gas pipeline and the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, which will be launched next year; a large number of Russian tourists choose Turkey as a holiday destination; and a huge Turkish construction business in Russia forces Ankara to maintain normal partnership relations with Moscow.
In the face of many internal problems, the Turkish authorities in foreign relations are very adept at finding ways to reconcile with competitors (or even enemies) and restore ways of cooperation, which indicates that economic realities have begun to prevail over antagonistic logic that has reached a dead end.
Are Russian-Turkish relations a prototype of a new type of relations between major powers?
Turkey and Russia, once former empires in history, have similar fates in their attempts to integrate into the West after the end of the Cold War, and so far neither has succeeded. Turkey received the status of a candidate from the European Union back in 1999, but after 23 years of waiting, it still has no hope of participating in the affairs of the Western world.
Similar experiences with the West have prompted Russia and Turkey to turn to expanding their geographical space, but many regions are an area of interest for both powers. At first glance, in most regional conflicts, the interests of the two countries are not only incompatible, but even opposite. Although Turkey's actions sometimes seem contrary to common sense, it is clearly aware of the limits of its own influence and is inclined to solve problems with Russia through negotiations, since open confrontation and hostility do not contribute to the interests and goals of the two countries.
Such interaction between Russia and Turkey is determined by objective reality: in the new fragmented world, the influence of the two countries in the Middle East continues to expand. Since the 1990s, the United States has forced them to sit down at the negotiating table on its own and imposed on them the model of a peace agreement proposed by America, but this has had no effect. At that moment, the ideologies were pluralistic and ambiguous, and even conflicting. All this required Russia and Turkey to abandon confrontation and maintain pragmatic relations of cooperation in the new reality, and especially mutual recognition of their respective interests.
From the Syrian war, the Libyan war, the Ukrainian crisis, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh to the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict and other regional conflicts, it is clear that Russia and Turkey are able to find compromise solutions on controversial and problematic topics. For example, the interests of Russia and Turkey in northern Syria were initially opposite, but neither side could do without the other, otherwise they would not be able to achieve their goals and fully control the situation. The two countries continued to conflict, but eventually decided to reach a compromise through difficult negotiations.
The model of cooperation between Russia and Turkey in resolving regional conflicts can also be called a "new type of great power relations", the construction of which is based not on common values and long-term common interests, but rather on solving specific challenges. Fyodor Lukyanov, a well-known Russian expert, noted that this kind of partnership between Russia and Turkey is very important for the Kremlin, especially in a constantly changing global and regional environment. Russia prefers to establish partnerships with countries that act in accordance with their interests and are able to solve specific problems through discussion, rather than conclude eternal "fraternal alliances".
Dmitry Trenin, former director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, also believes that Russia's role in the new international situation against the background of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict will consist not only in protecting its own sovereignty and opposing the West, but also in establishing a new type of relations with the non-Western world. In addition to strategic partnership with global powers China and India, there are also complex, but generally positive pragmatic ties with regional powers Turkey and Iran, which are a prototype for building this new model of relations.
From this point of view, cooperation between Russia and Turkey on regional challenges may in the future become a prototype of a new type of regional relations between major powers, as well as an important factor in building the Eurasian political landscape. However, all this has yet to be observed.
Comments:
Beware of being eaten by melons (吃瓜谨防被瓜吃): It is better not to allow Turkey and India to participate in international organizations with China. These two are eccentric scumbags, extremely selfish and arrogant.
Wukong is causing unrest in the White House (悟空大闹白)): And inflation in the US is less than 10%, and it's already hard for them.
I come and go freely (来去自)): It can be said that Turkey uses its geographical advantages to eat both Western and Eastern food. However, it is not difficult to expose such speculators and they do not live long.
cjwsr: Turkey blackmails everyone around when other countries are in trouble, but who will help her when she is in trouble? Diplomacy is the same as a person's character: if everything is based on profit, there is no result.
Little White Mouse (a): Turkey and Russia have been waging dozens of wars for hundreds of years, and have been at enmity, where does good relations come from? At a critical moment, this Turkish chicken will stab a polar bear in the back.
Senior Master (校长): Jumping up and down on the bridge, Turkey will sooner or later fall off it.
Rheological moderation (流变中庸): Turkey has the right size, the right geography and excellent opportunities for showing interests: if they give for free, then why not take it?
