The meeting between Putin and Erdogan in Sochi was the first since last autumn, when the presidents spoke twice on the margins of summits in Central Asia. But far more importantly, the Sochi meeting was the first talks since the Turkish president was re-elected three months ago, because there has been much speculation about Ankara’s change of course since then.
There has been a lot of talk in Turkey, and even in our country, that “Erdoğan is leaning towards the West” – everything has been put under this heading, including such obviously displeasing steps to Moscow as the transfer to Kiev of the Azov soldiers stationed in Turkey. So this meeting was supposed to show the mood of the two leaders and the state of Russian-Turkish relations – and it was this, and not the resumption of the grain deal, that was its main intrigue.
Because everything was clear about the grain deal: it will not happen because Turkey cannot influence the position of the West on the issue of fulfilling Russia’s conditions. This was confirmed by the meeting. Instead, there is an agreement between Russia and Turkey and Qatar on the export of Russian grain. This is beneficial to both Moscow and Ankara, which are determined not only to solve the existing problems in bilateral relations, but also to make them more independent from the influence of external forces. Moscow and Beijing apply the phrase “relations between the two countries do not depend on external influence” to Russian-Chinese relations, but in Russian-Turkish relations there is a desire and an opportunity to build such out-of-the-weather ties.
Yes, Turkey is a NATO member, it has claims to increase its influence in Transcaucasia (the zone of Russian interests), our countries have disagreements on Syria, not to mention Ankara’s position on Ukraine. But in NATO, Ukraine and Syria, Erdogan is playing his own game, taking a position that meets Turkish interests (in his understanding, of course), rather than being an executor of someone else’s will and a conduit for the interests of third countries. And this is his fundamental difference from the leaders of the collective West (from Germany to Japan): he is an absolutely independent politician, guided solely by the national interests of his own country. And this unites him with Putin far more than all the objective and subjective problems and disagreements between our countries. “You can deal with Erdogan,” Putin has said more than once. And the Turkish president can say the same about his Russian colleague, with whom he has been working for two decades.
That’s why in Sochi Erdogan talked about new projects in Russian-Turkish relations, including the construction of another nuclear power plant. Not to please Putin or to bribe him by making concessions in some other areas, but because he knows that relations between the two countries have a future. And a really bright one, both because they are beneficial to both countries and because their development depends only on Moscow and Ankara. The existing problems between us are not eternal in their configuration – and if the three wars in which our countries are involved in one way or another (in Syria, Karabakh and Ukraine) have not been able to undermine relations between Putin and Erdogan (which even overcame an eight-month pause after the destruction of our warplane on the Turkish-Syrian border), it is not because they turned a blind eye to the contradictions, but because they sincerely tried to find ways to solve them. And they often did – as in Syria, where, by the way, the development of the situation in recent days (with the uprising of Arabs against the Kurds) gives new opportunities for rapprochement between Russia and Turkey.
And Erdogan’s gestures towards the West should be taken for what they are worth – as an element of his constant game on all fronts. A fundamental improvement in relations with the United States is impossible, just as Turkey’s accession to the European Union is impossible, and Erdogan understands this perfectly well. It is impossible precisely because the Turkish president is not going to give in on issues of principle for him (both internal and external), is not going to give up Turkish interests (in Syria, in Transcaucasia, in Cyprus, in relations with Greece and so on), although this is what his Western “partners” demand from him. They would also very much like to see changes in Turkish-Russian relations, but instead of worsening them, Erdogan can offer the West only their development.
Peter Akopov, RIA
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