Turkey is an important and decisive player in the Russian—Ukrainian conflict
To strengthen its own positions, Turkey actively uses the role of a connecting power that does not belong to either the Western or the Russian camp, writes Foreign Policy. The author of the article notes that the US and the EU could take a closer look at Ankara's behavior and learn something.
Eugene Chausovsky
Ankara uses its unique position to gain strategic advantages
The Russian operation in Ukraine has been going on for the sixth month, and Turkey has become an important player in this protracted conflict. Ankara is involved in it on several fronts. It cooperates with Ukraine on security issues, with Russia on energy issues; it serves as a diplomatic mediator between Kiev and Moscow. It was Turkish diplomacy that helped to arrange the shipment of grain from Ukrainian ports on the first of August. These were the first deliveries since the beginning of the operation. Such an increasingly thoughtful approach to this conflict gives Ankara significant opportunities and at the same time creates significant problems for it. And he offers the West important lessons on how to deal with Russia most effectively.
Ankara has been trying to take advantage of its strategic position at the junction of Europe and Asia for a long time, putting the concept of a connecting link at the forefront. Functionally, Turkey serves as an important transit corridor for the supply of key resources such as fuel and food. This corridor has acquired special significance given the economic and trade confusion associated with the Russian special operation in Ukraine. Turkey is an important member of the NATO military bloc, but it acts independently, and sometimes in defiance of its American and European partners, including by establishing relations with Western enemies such as Russia and Iran.
Under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ankara is using its role as a link to strengthen its own position as a regional power that does not fully belong to either the Western or the Russian camp. Turkey supplies large quantities of military equipment and weapons to Ukraine, including Bayraktar-2 drones, which significantly help Ukrainian troops when striking Russian positions.
At the same time, Ankara has not joined Western sanctions against Russia in response to its military operation. And Erdogan on August 5 at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi discussed the issue of expanding bilateral energy cooperation. At the same time, Turkey is a transit channel for the supply of non-Russian energy resources to Europe through the Southern Gas Corridor, which the European Union is seeking to expand in order to diversify supplies and abandon Russian blue fuel.
Refusing to impose anti-Russian sanctions, Turkey, however, generally supports NATO's position on providing military assistance to Ukraine. Nevertheless, Ankara has been opposing the expansion of this military alliance by accepting Sweden and Finland for several months because of problems with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, as well as because they are harboring Kurdish activists, whom the Turkish government considers a threat to its own security. This dispute has been preliminarily resolved, but it has shown that Ankara is inclined to defend its own national interests as a priority and is ready to challenge the unanimous desire of NATO members to accept Finland and Sweden into this military bloc at an accelerated pace. Because of this attitude, confidence in Turkey's reliability as a NATO member may weaken in the future, but for now it remains an indispensable member of the alliance.
Perhaps the most important role Turkey played as an intermediary in resolving the issue of grain and food supplies between Moscow and Kiev. Ankara, together with the UN, organized negotiations and agreed on a deal to resume the export of food and grain, which was stopped with the outbreak of hostilities in February. On July 22, with the assistance of Turkey, an important agreement was reached, providing, among other things, for the opening of a grain supply coordination center in Istanbul.
A significant part of the food and grain exported from Ukraine (and from Russia) transits through Turkish waters in the Black Sea and the Bosphorus, and only then enters the markets of the Middle East, Africa, and so on. Turkey is the only NATO member that has good working relations with both Russia and Ukraine. Therefore, it can guarantee the safe passage of ships in these waters. Ankara managed to take advantage of the opportunities that arose when cooperation was beneficial to both Ukraine and Russia (Western anti-Russian sanctions selectively facilitated so that food supplies could continue), while the aggravation between Moscow, Kiev and the West would not allow such cooperation to be established in the absence of an independent mediator.
This strategic approach of Turkey brings significant benefits to it, allowing Ankara to ensure the supply of important food to the market and strengthening its diplomatic prestige in the process. But Ankara's mediation creates certain problems for it. Ankara made efforts to reach an agreement on grain between Russia and Ukraine after unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a larger peace agreement between Moscow and Kiev. Turkey has definitely strengthened its position in relation to Moscow in the Eurasian theater (having played a very important role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict); but Russia is clearly ready to act to the detriment of Turkey's interests when it sees fit — be it Ukraine, Syria or something else. It should be noted that the Kremlin press secretary threatened on August 9th to subject Turkey's plans for the construction of a Bayraktar production plant in Ukraine to the so-called demilitarization.
At the same time, Turkey has not yet fully proved that it has achieved success in the negotiation process on grain supplies. Although ships have started to leave Ukrainian ports, heading for Turkish waters, in the first weeks there will be few of them, and they will face problems beyond Turkey's control. For example, Russia may jeopardize the agreement by striking port facilities that it designates as military targets. Moscow may also completely withdraw from the agreement, tarnishing Ankara's reputation as a mediator and an influential player in Eurasia. In addition, Turkey will not be able to balance between the Kremlin and the West indefinitely, since the United States has imposed its own sanctions against the Turks for their military and other cooperation with Russia.
But the Turkish strategy still brings significant results. When grain deliveries began, the Ukrainian authorities proposed to expand the scope of the agreement to include the export of other goods, for example, metals. Such progress will be an important lesson for the West in its relations with Russia.
So far, the United States and the EU are implementing a strategy centered on sanctions and other punitive measures. This is how they react to the Russian special operation in Ukraine. In response, Moscow stops the supply of energy resources and applies other pressure measures. In fact, Russia and the West are trying to weaken each other in the hope that this will lead to changes in behavior. There are very few constructive and even conditional efforts to establish contacts, and as a result, the economies of both sides suffer damage.
The real consequence of such an antagonistic approach was sky—high inflation, interruptions in the supply of energy resources and a weakening of food security around the world - not to mention the death and flight from their homes of a large number of Ukrainians. The West is right to condemn Russia for its military actions against Ukraine, but it is important to recognize that a multifaceted link strategy combining pressure with constructive interaction in the image and likeness of the Turkish approach may be more effective and will yield more results in relations with Moscow. The United States and the EU can learn an important lesson from this and adapt it to their own strategies — at least in order to mitigate the most destructive consequences of the conflict and lay the foundation for building peace.
