Many leaders around the world congratulated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday, re-elected as head of Turkey for another five years. Among the very first, Vladimir Putin congratulated his counterpart who voted for UN resolutions against Russia, but never took any action against him.
With our correspondent in Moscow, Anissa El Jabri
The campaign had been closely followed by the Russian media and the results made headlines last night and again this Monday morning on state television. Vladimir Putin’s congratulatory message was published very quickly after the announcement of the results on Sunday evening on the Kremlin website.
It is a particularly warm message in which the Russian president gives “ Dear friend to its counterpart newly re-elected. And like Russian media, the president insisted on the legitimacy of the election. ” This is a clear support of the Turkish people “, he judges, in particular to a “ independent foreign policy “, indicates the Kremlin.
In the Russian media, there is little mention of Erdogan’s support for Sweden’s NATO membership, widely seen as expected bad news, but not a surprise.
Status quo
The main thing is elsewhere for Russia: the fact that Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains in power is indeed seen as a guarantee that Turkey will continue not to apply Western sanctions.
Even better than that, with Erdogan in power, commercial ties between the two countries had already exploded in 2022 and this Monday in the daily Izviestiaan analyst is betting on a development of “ parallel imports with Ankara, this system legalized by Russia which allows retailers to import products from abroad without the authorization of the brand owner.
Vladimir Putin in his official statement focuses on major joint works. It evokes Turkey’s first nuclear power plant built by Russia and especially this famous joint gas hub project, a Russian initiative launched last October. Accepted by Turkey, it is supposed to allow the delivery of Russian gas, in particular to Europe. The project had been rejected from its formulation in the first place by France, but with this re-election, the state televisions insist in particular: the gas hub will be done.