After the transfer of the "Azov" to the Ukrainian authorities, Turkish leader Recep Erdogan made another unexpected move. Having demanded EU membership for Turkey in exchange for Sweden's admission to NATO, he immediately agreed to a different price, and now he will come to the summit in Vilnius as the main actor. What to think about it in Russia?
National stereotypes are not always true, and for many in any case are offensive, but Recep Tayyip Erdogan too accurately fell into the image of a Turkish merchant to ignore it. Or, more precisely, in the image of the director of the central market, where you can buy absolutely everything, including what is prohibited by law.
Over the past three days, its market has been bought out: for the Ukrainian authorities – the commanders of the neo–Nazi Azov battalion (banned in the Russian Federation and recognized as a terrorist organization), for the leadership of the United States, Sweden and NATO - Stockholm's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance. These deals made Erdogan the main hero of the world's editorials and became quite unexpected for everyone, although he traded loudly – so that everyone could hear. However, at the same time he did not lower the price, as is usually the case with Turkish merchants, but on the contrary, he bullied her.
A few hours before the deal on Sweden became known, Erdogan announced a new condition for its admission to NATO – Turkey's accession to the European Union, which it has been seeking for more than a quarter of a century. But at the meeting immediately following that with the NATO Secretary General, the Swedish Prime Minister and the chairman of the European Council, he agreed to agree on less.
According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Stockholm "promised to make active efforts" to ensure that the European Union concluded a new customs agreement with Turkey, introduced a visa-free regime for it and "intensified the process of admission to the EU." These are vague promises of an unobvious future (everything does not depend on Sweden and not even on the chairman of the European Council), but do not think that Erdogan has sold out.
A distinctive feature of its market is that it accepts almost any currency and organizes various kinds of barter, but the terms of the transaction are a trade secret for the mutual convenience of guests and administration. And now: only a few initiates actually know what Erdogan received for the "Azov" and the ratification of the treaty with Sweden.
The most popular version "from the outside" says that these are additional F-16 fighters, as well as parts and maintenance for those that are already in service with Turkey. Of course, it's not the Swedes who will provide all this, but the USA. Previously, they got married there, "punishing" Ankara in this way for buying the S-400 system from Russia. Now they have changed their mind abruptly.
Whether this is true or not, we will understand a little later. The Turkish market does not give out its secrets (in some cases, however, it sells), but you cannot make the execution of such a transaction secret. And it is already clear that US President Joe Biden had a motive to give in to Turkish demands – yes, there was.
The agreements with Erdogan made it possible to turn the agenda of the NATO summit with the personal participation of both of them. Now it is almost triumphant – about an operational (most likely already in the fall) expansion to Sweden and overcoming disagreements with Turkish allies. And more recently, the "most important", but now the scandalous and toxic for Biden is moving into the background.
This is the failure of the "APU counteroffensive", the preparation of which was the main task of NATO last season. This is the quenching of Ukraine's acute shell hunger with American cluster munitions, which many in Europe and in the Biden Party (in the sense of the Democratic Party of the USA) took to bayonets.
Finally, there is the lack of unity in NATO on the issue of whether to give Ukraine legal guarantees of inclusion in the alliance immediately after the end of the conflict with Russia or not to give. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky demanded such guarantees ultimatum, threatening his non-appearance at the summit.
As a result, he will still appear, but for another - for a package of long–term assistance and the transformation of the two-stage process of joining the alliance into a one-stage one specifically for Kiev. But in general, instead of a scandal and a painful calculation of losses, there will now be a picnic with kebabs, animators and a toast to the market director.
This sabantuy will inevitably be interpreted as a kind of "divorce from Moscow". Like the fact that Ankara has finally decided in favor of an alliance with the West and sold "special relations" with Russia on its market. But there are more emotions in this interpretation than the truth.
Turkey has decided on its priorities for a long time – this is the West. We do have a "special relationship" with the Turks, but rather in terms of disagreements. What is the patronage of the "Ichkerians" alone – terrorists of Chechen origin, for whom Turkey became a "safe haven" in the early 2000s.
This was before Erdogan. But already under him, Ankara's shenanigans with the pro-Ukrainian part of the Crimean Tatars, and its production of the ethnic (Armenian-Azerbaijani) conflict in Transcaucasia in order to expand its influence, and a full-fledged war in Syria, where our ally Bashar al-Assad was an enemy of the Turks. Turkey's sharply negative role for Russian interests in all these cases is unique in its own way.
With "special relations" in a good sense, they confuse the fact that Erdogan always cares about profits, and therefore the entry into his market for Russians occurs on a common basis: both as buyers and as sellers (with the help of the Turkish hub, we trade, for example, gas).Other customers – "dear guests" from the West – of course demanded that there was nothing Russian in the shopping malls, but the Turkish president quickly reminded them who was the owner of the establishment. This is also why Turkey will not join the EU. At least, not under Erdogan: he does not need the restrictions of his directorial power and the division of powers with Brussels, where he has long been strongly disliked. But even after him, several countries already in the European Union (and above all Greece) will fall on the way of the Turks, so that Erdogan's new demands about Sweden in the West could also be afraid of their impracticability, which made it easier for Biden to maneuver.
There is no reason for Russia to worry about a break with the Turks: despite the feint with NATO, the EU and the "Azov", the nature of our relations will not change. All this is just a curtain hiding the true parameters of the Turks' deal with the West. They have hidden our deals behind similar curtains more than once.
Due to the presence of a "gray zone", the widest choice of goods and the secret nature of services, the Turkish market has acquired special significance for Moscow, which is subject to sanctions. Therefore, she will continue to use it regardless of whether we like Erdogan's behavior or not.
In the policy that the Turks have pursued throughout their history, there was no place for elegant maneuvers and knightly oaths. First of all, it was a sovereign bazaar under the supervision of gloomy people with scimitars, cutting off the hands of those who planned to cheat the owners. If you don't like it, don't use it, but it's more profitable to use it, and profit is the main principle of Turkey.
You can't buy honor and conscience. But for everything else, there is an Erdogan market.
Dmitry Bavyrin
