Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is going to Kiev on Thursday to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky… For months, Tayyip Erdogan has been offering his mediation in the crisis with Russia, accused of preparing an invasion of its neighbor.
From our correspondent in Istanbul,
The Turkish head of state has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit him in the coming weeks. Tayyip Erdogan believes he is well placed to mediate, but also because he has an interest in easing tensions.
On the one hand, Turkey is close to Ukraine. Cooperation between the Turkish and Ukrainian defense industries continues to strengthen. Ankara sells combat drones in Kiev, which have also been used against pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass. On the other hand, Turkey has come much closer to Russia since 2016. Moscow has sold it an advanced anti-aircraft defense system (the S-400), even though Ankara is a member of NATO. And Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin have become accustomed to negotiating compromises in the conflict zones where their countries are involved, such as in Syria or the Caucasus.
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Ankara plays the balancing act
Turkey therefore has an interest in maintaining a balance between Kiev and Moscow and well beyond, between the West and Russia. Between, on the one hand, its commitments vis-à-vis NATO and, on the other, its real interests in cooperating with Russia. Tayyip Erdogan asks Moscow to renounce its “unilateral” demands vis-à-vis NATO and considers that an invasion of Ukraine ” would not be rational “. But at the same time, he calls on NATO to ” listen to russia ” for ” allay his worriess” and refuses to join the calls for sanctions.
the Turkish president had already refused to apply American and European sanctions after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, while not hesitating to strongly condemn it. This new crisis over Ukraine is a challenge for Ankara, which is trying to spare each other, its interests on both sides, without having to choose a side. But it is a fragile and risky balance, which a conflict would make untenable.
A difficult position to hold in the event of escalating tensions
In the event of a conflict, NATO would not appreciate Ankara’s ambiguities, any more than Russia, and Turkey would face pressure from all sides, deprived of room for manoeuvre, forced to make a strategic choice between West and Russia. But Ankara has no desire to alienate Moscow, on which the presence of its troops in Syria depends – among other means of pressure.
Would it continue to supply drones to Ukraine? Would it facilitate the passage through its straits of NATO ships heading for the Black Sea? Would it apply the sanctions against Russia this time? It is still much too early to answer these questions, but they confront Turkey with the contradictions – certainly claimed, but contradictions all the same – of its foreign policy.
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