(Istanbul) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visiting Kiev on Thursday, is banking on his NATO membership and his relationship with Vladimir Putin to break his isolation and avoid a conflict that could weaken Turkey and its chances of re-election.
Posted at 10:16 p.m.
Successful mediation could restore Ankara’s image within NATO and with the United States, with which relations have been strained since Turkey’s acquisition of a Russian defense system despite its membership in the Alliance. Atlantic.
“This is an opportunity for Turkey to gain prestige and emerge from its isolation within NATO”, explains Asli Aydintasbas, researcher at the European Council on International Relations (ECFR), at a time when Washington and its allies are stepping up their efforts to dissuade Russia from invading Ukraine.
“Ankara will also take the opportunity to try to repair its relationship with Washington,” she added, stressing that Erdogan can count on his “unique relationship with Putin, made up of rivalry and cooperation – which allows them to support rival camps in Libya, the Caucasus and Syria” without going into conflict.
“Someone who keeps his promises”
This relationship between the two leaders was undermined in 2015, when the Turkish air force shot down a Russian fighter on the Turkish-Syrian border, generating an unprecedented crisis between Ankara and Moscow.
But ties were closer after the failed July 2016 coup in Turkey.
Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the night of the putsch, when most Western leaders waited several days before doing the same.
A long silence that brought Ankara closer to Moscow, analysts say.
“He is someone who keeps his promises – a man, a real one”, said Vladimir Putin about his Turkish counterpart after the war in Nagorny-Karabakh at the end of 2020.
According to Abdurrahman Babacan, a professor at Medipol University in Istanbul, the two leaders have this common characteristic of “laying their cards on the table” and see “cooperation [entre eux] as something more beneficial than conflict.
“Dealing with the Bayraktar”
Ukraine, however, is one of the issues that oppose them.
Ankara, which supports Kiev joining NATO, strongly opposed Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 in the name of protecting its Turkish-speaking Tatar minority.
And the tension has risen a notch recently around the Ukrainian crisis, Mr. Putin reproaching his Turkish counterpart for having provided Kiev with armed drones, used against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The main representative of the pro-Russian separatists thus called last week in Moscow for weapons to resist the Ukrainian army. “We need to face the Bayraktar,” said Denis Pouchiline, referring to Turkish drones.
During the Nagorny-Karabakh conflict, drones supplied by Turkey to Azerbaijan played a decisive role in Baku’s victory over Armenia.
“In an asymmetrical combat between the Ukrainian army and the forces of Donbass, a few TB2s can tip the scales. But in the event of a Russian invasion, the TB2 will not make any difference,” tempers Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI).
Experts believe, however, that the use of Turkish drones by Ukraine risks inflaming tensions between Ankara and Moscow.
“Russian Boycott”
“If Turkey plays escalation, Russia can retaliate by exerting pressure in Syria (on Turkish soldiers and their auxiliaries) or deciding on economic sanctions”, warns Dimitar Bechev, researcher at the University of Oxford.
“Given its weakness, the Turkish economy cannot afford a Russian tourist boycott”, such as that decided by Moscow in 2015 after the Turkish aviation destroyed a Russian fighter, affirms Anthony Skinner, independent analyst and expert from Turkey.
Especially since the next Turkish presidential election is scheduled for June 2023. In this context, “Erdogan does not want to stir up Putin’s anger”, underlines Soner Cagaptay, of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, for whom the Turkish president “is fully focused on winning in 2023”.
” An intervention [militaire] Russia would exacerbate Turkish economic difficulties, for example by driving up the price of oil, ”abounds Aaron Stein. For Turkey, a country very dependent on imports, particularly in terms of energy, “it would not be a cakewalk”, judges the analyst.