The movement of Moscow and Ankara towards cold relations

In the shadow of the war in Ukraine and Turkey’s close cooperation with NATO members, the relationship between Turkey and Russia is going through cold days. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is seeking to counter a possible Russian attack in its latest naval exercise. The purpose of this exercise will be to increase the ability to perform maritime tasks, including sea control, strengthening NATO’s collective defense and crisis response capabilities, and Turkey is one of the countries participating in this exercise.

Washington, too, has always made many calculations regarding Turkey’s possible role in America’s plans against Russia and, before that, the Soviet Union.

In this regard, while it was announced that Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, will visit Ankara this 12 months, Moscow announced that this trip has been canceled and talks about the cooling of the relations between the two sides have started due to direct and indirect reasons. The last one was Ankara’s agreement with the membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO.

Türkiye’s differences with Russia about Ukraine

Since Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has sought to maintain relations with Russia and the West. An approach that he will try to continue.

On the one hand, Ankara provides military and diplomatic support to Kyiv. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised that he will never accept the occupation of Ukraine by Russia. Like the position he took during the annexation of Crimea to Moscow in 2014.

After the start of the Ukraine war, Turkey has played an important role in securing Ukraine’s maritime exports, first through a UN-brokered grain deal and now thanks to a corridor in its territorial waters.

On the other hand, Turkey never joined the West in boycotting Russia. This country has become the largest buyer of Russian crude oil after China and India. While most of Europe has cut air links with Russia, Istanbul Airport remains a hub for flights to and from major Russian cities.

Meanwhile, talk of greater military cooperation between Ankara and Kiev, including the construction of Turkish drones in Ukraine, caused further damage between Moscow and Ankara, while they often disagreed on the overall details of the Syrian crisis.

Different positions of Moscow and Ankara regarding Syria

Putin stood by Bashar Assad from the beginning, while Erdogan used all his direct and indirect abilities to get rid of Assad. Even the army that sent Turkey to Syria and fought side by side with all the armed terrorists against the Syrian government.

On the one hand, Damascus, which has a good relationship with Moscow, wants the end of Turkey’s illegal establishment in northern Syria and lack of support for the Syrian opposition, and on the other hand, Erdogan claims that for a long time which asked Assad to take concrete steps to support the return of 3.7 million Syrian refugees who are currently in Turkey.

Meanwhile, Moscow and Damascus have repeatedly announced that Syria is ready to accept its refugees, but Western countries, especially the United States, prevent Syrians from returning to their country.

Türkiye’s use of its maritime territories

The crisis in Ukraine helped to deepen these conflicts, because Ankara is a member of NATO and the organization has dozens of bases in the country, some of which are near the Black Sea and the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, which are the only passage for Russian ships.

But some of Turkey’s actions, such as closing the straits on countries that are not allied with it, led to the anger of the United States and other NATO leaders, because they believed that Erdogan did not adhere to the sanctions against Russia.

At the same time, Türkiye has strengthened its presence in the Black Sea. On January 11, Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler launched a joint naval operation with Romania and Bulgaria, in which the three countries deployed minesweepers, patrol vessels, helicopters and drones to clear sea lanes of stray mines that have been strewn since the start of the war. Ukraine created problems.

Türkiye stepping into Russia’s backyard

While everyone knows that Washington has always made many calculations regarding the possible role of Turkey in America’s plans against Russia and before that, the Soviet Union, Turkey has religious, national and emotional relations with Islamic republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Moscow sees them as its backyard. Turkey’s direct military intervention during the Azerbaijan Republic of Armenia war, which ended with the annexation of the disputed region of Karabakh to the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Moscow does not hide its displeasure with Turkey’s role and future possibilities. The presence of about 20 million Muslims inside Russia’s borders, some of whom identify themselves with Turkey for religious and nationalistic reasons, has aroused Russia’s concern.

Without all these conflicting and intertwined data preventing Erdogan and Putin from continuing frequent meetings and contacts as long as economic interests demand it, Moscow has bet on keeping Ankara as far away from Washington as possible. This is something that has succeeded so far because of Ankara’s need for Russian natural gas, which covers about half of Turkey’s annual consumption.

Positive cooperation between Moscow and Ankara

On the other hand, Russian companies are building nuclear reactors in southern Turkey. At the same time, about 7 million Russian tourists visit the southern provinces of Turkey every year, and about 200,000 of them have bought houses in Turkey, and some have received Turkish citizenship.

In the same situation, Turkish companies are implementing dozens of construction projects worth tens of billions of dollars with their Russian counterparts, they also get similar profits from the export of agricultural products to Russia.

Historical relations between Moscow and Ankara

In addition to these data, which were both negative and positive, one should also look at the historical relations between Russia and Turkey in the last 500 years.

Nationalist circles in Turkey and to some extent in Russia, from time to time recall these religious and nationalistic memories that were the cause of the sixteen brutal wars between Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

After joining NATO in 1952 and then to the Baghdad Pact in 1955, Turkey became a front line for the defense of the Western camp, and the number of US and NATO military bases in Turkey increased to more than 150 in the mid-1960s. delivered

Washington has had and continues to have a major impact on all developments in Turkey’s politics and economy. Because big businessmen and big companies have intertwined and complicated relationships with the world of economics and finance in America and EU countries.

This may explain Erdogan’s retreat from his opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, despite threats to Ankara by Washington and Western capitals.

Erdogan, who does not have a good relationship with US President Joe Biden, is betting on the next stage of developments in America with the possibility of Trump returning to the White House. Because Trump’s return makes Erdogan happy, because he had a frank relationship with Trump, although his positions were harsher towards him.

Trump said in one of his statements that he admires Erdogan and loves him very much, because he implements everything he tells him. This statement came after Trump’s tweets on his platform X (formerly Twitter) account, in which he threatened Erdogan and promised him that if he does not release Friar Bronson in 2018, things will not be good.

The impact of the American election on cold relations

Moscow is monitoring the possible positions of President Erdoğan towards Washington until the American elections, which will lead to further coldness of relations between Ankara and Moscow.

It is not clear how long Erdogan will be successful in his tactics in establishing balance in relations with both sides. But he seems to have made the most of them because he knows that they need him more than they need him because Turkey has a very important strategic position for both sides.

Preparation and editing: Mina Azimi