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Russia and Turkey – the balance of interests is a priority

Date of publication: 19 July 2021
The Foreign ministers of Russia and Turkey held talks in Antalya

Andrey Areshev, political scientist

On June 18-20, a “diplomatic forum” was held in the Mediterranean Antalya with the participation of President Erdogan, designed to demonstrate the increased capabilities of Ak-Saray (the presidential palace in Ankara) to promote its own foreign policy agenda in various directions. Representatives of several dozen Balkan, Asian and African clients of the Erdogan regime, including from a number of post-Soviet countries, in particular, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Kazakhstan, took part in the event aimed at approving the new role of Turkey in international politics.

According to the Nordic Monitor, “Erdogan’s new propaganda initiative failed to attract significant attention in the world”. Not wanting to participate in an incomprehensible quality in the “backup dance” with Turkish partners, the United States, Russia, China, India, the countries of the European Union and the Middle East clearly prefer other, from their point of view, more adequate mechanisms of political and diplomatic interaction with the heirs of the “Brilliant Porte”.

A positive dialogue with Moscow is of considerable value for Ankara, which is experiencing serious economic problems. According to the head of the Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Exchanges of Turkey, Ryfat Hisardziklioglu, despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic, the bilateral trade turnover amounted to $22 billion last year, and there is a (unrealistic yet) goal to bring it to $100 billion.

In 2020, Erdogan spoke on the phone with Russian President Putin at least 19 times and six times in the first half of this year. The nervous impatience of the Turkish partners, who sought to open their country to the multimillion flows of Russian tourists as soon as possible, was evident in May during a series of mutual visits against the background of emotional escapades in the media. From January to May, only 560,000 Russians visited Turkish resorts, the number of which, due to the pandemic last year, decreased by three times compared to 2019 (2 against 6 million, respectively).

Air traffic between the two countries resumed on June 22, and a week later, on June 30, the Foreign Ministers of Turkey and Russia Mevlut Cavusoglu and Sergey Lavrov held talks on a wide range of issues of mutual interest in Antalya. The meeting place itself was clearly not chosen by chance: the head of Turkish diplomacy did not hide his joy in waiting for a hard coin from Russian tourists, promising to do everything possible for their safety: “…In Antalya – a popular holiday destination for Russians, everything is also ready. Mr. Lavrov was able to see this for himself”.

It seems that the obvious desire for journalists to smooth out sharp corners hardly means that there are no discussions, television cameras for which are actually not so necessary. Showing “strategic patience”, Moscow is apparently ready to ignore clearly unfriendly steps on the part of Ankara (for example, non-recognition of the Russian affiliation of the Crimea or unconditional support for the” Euro-Atlantic ” prospects of Tbilisi and Kiev), preferring to focus on the positive. In addition to the purchase of the S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft missile systems and the Akkuyu atomic project for the needs of the Turkish army, which are so annoying to the White House, we are also talking about the joint production of the Russian vaccine against the Sputnik V coronavirus in Turkey. The supply of “blue fuel” is also growing: in the first half of this year, Turkey imported 14.64 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia – the highest figure since 2017.

The preservation of the status quo in the area of the Black Sea Straits, as well as cooperation in conflict regions, such as Syria, partly Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, where the joint monitoring center operates, is of no small importance for the Russian side. Sergey Lavrov expressed satisfaction with “the interaction with our Turkish friends and colleagues on the implementation of the Montreux Convention. Today, during the negotiations, we recorded that in no way the plans for the construction of the Istanbul Canal will affect the parameters of the presence of military fleets of foreign powers in the Black Sea.” The answer to the question about the recent trip of the presidents of Turkey and Azerbaijan to Nagorno-Karabakh with the signing of another declaration on cooperation on a wide range of issues, not excluding the military-technical sphere, was equally complementary.

Speaking about Washington’s cooperation with the Arab-Kurdish “Syrian Democratic Forces”,  Lavrov condemned the” unacceptable “support for” separatist tendencies» in the north-east of Syria. In turn, the Turkish Foreign Minister said about the continuation of cooperation with Moscow in Syria, including the “Astana” negotiation format: “The dialogue between Ankara and Moscow is based on mutual respect. Turkey is ready to cooperate with Russia on Syria, both in promoting the political process and in ensuring calm on the ground.” The issues of the Syrian settlement were also touched upon during a telephone conversation between the leaders of the two countries on June 24, who stressed “the importance of joint activities of the military of Russia and Turkey aimed at preventing an escalation of tension in Idlib and in the north-east of the country, the fight against terrorist groups remaining in these areas.”

Of course, all this does not mean that there are no underlying disagreements, primarily on the issue of the future of the Idlib “de–escalation zone”, which seriously escalated at the beginning of 2020 and required an urgent visit to Moscow by President Erdogan, as a result of which the well-known “Moscow agreements “were concluded. Despite the fact that many questions remain about their implementation by the Turkish partners, it is obvious that Moscow and Ankara are striving for constructive cooperation. In particular, this was manifested in the process of preparing the UN Security Council resolution adopted on July 9 on a cross-border assistance mechanism in Syria.

The next meeting of the intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation is to be held in Moscow in the near future. The observers also drew attention to the agreement to restore the work of bilateral mechanisms at the highest and high level, including the High-level Cooperation Council, whose work was previously suspended due to the pandemic. These and other measures seem very timely: according to some polls, up to 80% of Turkish citizens would prefer their country to develop a partnership with Russia, rather than with the United States.

However, Turkish politicians proceed from the fact that ties with the” northern neighbor “are not an alternative to Ankara’s” Euro-Atlantic “obligations, which is clearly seen at least on the example of the “advanced” Turkish-Ukrainian dialogue. And even more so, the well-known Russian-speaking Turkish mass propaganda media are in their “own world”, the rhetoric of which hardly corresponds to the complementary speeches of politicians and diplomats. Accordingly, the Russian-Turkish “partnership of convenience” will continue to be tested for strength, without promising an easy life.



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