Turkey-NATO Daily

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Despite any Russia ties, Turkey is a strong NATO partner

Galip Dalay , Daria Isachenko, February 18, 2022, Ukraine crisis: What is Turkey’s stake in Russia-Nato rivalry?, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/ukraine-crisis-russia-turkey-stake-nato-rivalry

On the other hand, despite its close relationship with Russia, Turkey is an exemplary Nato ally. In fact, Turkey’s policy towards the Ukraine crisis is very much in line with the general Nato approach to Russia, namely deterrence and dialogue. In beefing up Ukraine’s defence capabilities by providing Kyiv with military items, Turkey pursues a policy of deterrence towards Russia. Rhetorically, however, Ankara favours diplomacy over escalation. Turkey thus appears eager to refrain from joining any attempt that seeks to slap Russia with heavy punitive sanctions or military confrontation. Indeed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a number of times expressed his readiness to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. The stakes are high for Turkey in the current crisis. It involves the security of its northern neighbour, Ukraine, the balance of power in the Black Sea region, its complex relations with Russia, and the future of the European security order. urkey and Ukraine are, in the words of Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, “truly friends in need”. Their mutual interest has proven to be most pressing in military-technical cooperation. The acquisition of the S-400, military operations in Syria and direct military support of Azerbaijan during the latest Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have left Ankara with sanctions from its western allies. As a result, Turkey faced severe gaps in military procurement and production. Most acute of these is the lack of engines for Turkey’s drones and fighter jets. It’s a shortage Ankara counts on solving, inter alia, with the help of Ukrainian manufacturers. Azerbaijan’s military victory in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the autumn of 2020 boosted Ukraine’s interest in Turkish drones.Furthermore, to increase its naval capacity, Ukraine ordered two Turkish Ada-class corvettes. Regarding Ukraine’s long-standing ambitions, in the joint declaration of April 2021 of the High-Level Strategic Council between Ukraine and Turkey, both underlined their “support to Ukraine’s Nato membership perspective in particular, in its intentions to be granted Membership Action Plan in the near future and aim to contribute to the interoperability of Ukraine’s Armed Forces with Allies”. Ukraine is also an indispensable partner for Turkey in the Black Sea. More specifically, according to one Turkish official: “Ukraine is like a dam that stops further Russian influence and pressure in the region.” Among all their shared neighbourhoods, the Black Sea has been the most sensitive area in the history of Turkey-Russia relations. The Crimean peninsula was a cornerstone of the Ottoman-Russian struggle for dominance in the region, with the Ottomans losing it to the Russian Empire in 1774. Later, the Soviet Union never felt at ease with Ankara’s control of the Turkish straits that connect the Black Sea with the Aegean and Mediterranean seas. However, in the post-Cold War period, despite past grievances, Turkey and Russia have found a way to cooperate in the Black Sea, with Ankara trying to stike a delicate balance between Russia and its Nato allies. Should hostilities prevail over dialogue in the current confrontational negotiations between Russia and the West, Turkey will find itself in a rather difficult position, and its Nato identity will come under pressure. In the event of a Russian-Turkish confrontation, Syria is likely to be the most obvious arena for Moscow’s retaliation Back in 2014, Turkey declared Russia’s seizure of Crimea an illegal annexation, yet did not side with its western partners in the sanctions regime against Moscow. Turkey’s economic dependency on Russia in areas such as energy, tourism and trade played a significant role in this decision. Since then, the Turkey-Russia relationship has become more interdependent, covering regional conflict management, nuclear technology and sophisticated weapons systems. If the balance in one area is disturbed, it may well spill over into other areas, including regional conflicts, especially in the Middle East and the South Caucasus. In the event of a Russian-Turkish confrontation, Syria is likely to be the most obvious arena for Moscow’s retaliation, as it remains Ankara’s Achilles’ heel in its relations with Russia. By contrast, the post-Soviet space represents Russia’s sphere of relative vulnerability in its ties with Ankara. While striving to deepen military-technical cooperation with Ukraine on the one hand and to limit its geopolitical exposure towards Russia in the Black Sea on the other, Turkey’s attempt to mediate between Russia and Ukraine is, however, unlikely to bear fruit. Istanbul has already been considered as a possible alternative to Minsk for meetings of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, which includes representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). However, the chance of Ukrainian and Russian presidents meeting in Turkey, as envisaged by Ankara, has little prospect for now, since Russia’s overall agenda in this crisis concerns not only Ukraine. Rather, Moscow’s key worry is about how the West designs Europe’s security architecture, namely against and in confrontation to Russia. By implication, Moscow is primarily concerned by the presence of Nato military infrastructure in Eastern Europe and a potential military confrontation over Crimea – both of which trump any alarm it may harbour over Turkish drones. European security and the international order in transition On 18 November 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in the expanded meeting of Russia’s foreign ministry board, that “our recent warnings have had a certain effect: tensions have arisen… It is important for them to remain in this state for as long as possible”. He urged Russia’s foreign ministry “to push for serious long-term guarantees that ensure Russia’s security”. Putin’s demands on security guarantees include preventing Nato’s expansion eastward, ending its military cooperation with post-Soviet states and withdrawing nuclear weapons from Europe, as well as the absence of any strike systems that could potentially threaten Russia. Ukraine crisis: Why global conflict is no longer unthinkable Read More » In brief, what Moscow wants is to change the current European security architecture. But why now? From the Russian perspective, two decisions made in Washington last year have been significant. First is the withdrawal of Nato forces from Afghanistan in August 2021. Second is the announcement of the trilateral security deal between Australia, the UK and the US (Aukus) in September 2021. Importantly, both – Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan and Aukus – have been interpreted in Ankara in a similar way, namely as signalling the lack of unity in the West, as well as Washington’s overall shift in geo-strategic priorities. More importantly for Ankara, Greece and France’s defence pact, which was signed in the autumn of 2021 and driven by an anti-Turkey disposition, illustrates the new parallel security partnerships emerging within western security architecture. Such fragmentation, especially within Nato, would further motivate Turkey to pursue bilateral security arrangements whenever necessary. Nevertheless, Ankara seems to share the West’s vision of how to uphold the post-Cold War European security order, even though it is anxious about the ongoing debate on a new European security design, as Turkey’s role within that remains unclear. So far, in the current Ukraine crisis, Turkey and other Nato members appear to be on the same page in opposing Russian revisionism. Ankara is aware of the fact that the cost of maintaining the post-Cold War geopolitical status quo is growing and growing. However, the cost of geopolitical revisionism appears to be incomparably higher. Therefore, for Ankara, maintaining the status quo is not a matter of preference, but rather one of choosing the lesser evil. The main problem, however, is that there is a lack of consensus within Nato on how to approach this conflict, which provides individual countries, including Turkey, with greater room for manoeuvre. On the one hand, non-EU members of Nato, namely the US, the UK and Turkey, have adopted a much more active foreign policy towards Ukraine, particularly when it comes to providing Kyiv with military equipment – specifically armed drones, in the case of Ankara. On the other hand, Turkey’s emphasis on dialogue over complete deterence echoes EU members of Nato, like Germany. In this way, Turkey is actually decoupling itself from the US and the UK, as it does not want to risk crossing Russia’s red lines. If Russia did push its current escalation strategy, though, western powers would be more likely to converge, rather than engage in a grand bargain with Moscow over the future of European security. Despite its clear interest in what is unravelling between Ukraine and Russia, Turkey has been been conspicuously absent in both western consultations over the Ukraine crisis and the general debate on European security. A video conference held by US President Joe Biden on Russia and Ukraine on 24 January included European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, European Council president Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz of Germany, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Andrzej Duda of Poland and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Erdogan was not present. Outlook If the Ukraine crisis continues in its current form, meaning that it does not result in an open conflict, then Turkey can benefit from it, by showcasing and selling further defence items to Ukraine and forging even closer relations with it, improving its relations with the West, and partially balancing its geopolitical vulnerability with regards to Russia in a tit-for-tat fashion. Indeed, Turkey’s track record in recent years illustrates that through gaining a foothold in different conflict zones, it has acquired levers of influence with different actors. This logic appears in play in the Ukraine crisis. The challenge for Ankara is that the difficulty of striking the right balance between deterrence and dialogue in its partnership with Moscow has increased tremendously. Thus far, both sides have illustrated a sufficient level of strategic flexibility and patience in preventing a rupture in their relations. This distinction defines Moscow’s level of flexibility towards Turkey’s moves. Ukraine is a crisis of first-degree importance for Russia, as well as for Europe’s security. If the Ukraine crisis gets out of hand, then the strategic flexibility that has thus far sustained Turkish-Russian relations might reach its limits. Turkey might then have to make choices that it has thus far strived to avoid. Ankara has pursued a geopolitical balancing act through its role in certain conflict zones such as Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh. But for Moscow, there is a significant difference between crises in the Middle East and Africa and those in its immediate neighbourhood. Moscow looks at the former through the lenses of geopolitical power, influence and status projection. The post-Soviet space on the other hand, is seen as its backyard and is a question of national security. Regarding Turkish-western relations, the current set of crises in Turkey’s surrounding regions opens up more ground between Ankara and Washington, but also with European partners. This is the case in Ukraine, in Afghanistan and with regards to the Bosnian-Serb leader Milorad Dodik’s separatist agenda, which may prove to be highly explosive for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The potential for cooperation between Turkey and the West in these areas is yet to be fully explored. Nevertheless, Turkey’s traditional policy of balancing Russia through its Nato geopolitical identity might become more accentuated going forward. So, what does the Ukrainian crisis mean for Turkey in a changing European security order? During the Clinton, Bush and Obama years (until 2014), Russian-western relations were largely discussed within the so-called framework of detente. As for Ankara, in the late 90s and during the first decade of the 2000s, Turkish-European relations revolved around whether or not Turkey would join the EU. In spite of their own specific dynamics and particularities, both frameworks are no longer in place. Russian-western relations have long entered a post-detente phase, and Turkish-European relations are now in a post-accession to the EU era. However, current debates about the future of European security have not got to grips with this reality completely.

Turkey committed to NATO

Daily Sabah, 2-18, 22, Turkey stands at center of NATO’s geopolitical future: Altun, https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/turkey-stands-at-center-of-natos-geopolitical-future-altun

Turkey expects more support from NATO and its allies for activities aimed at stabilizing the region and the world as a country at the core of the alliance’s geopolitical future, Turkey’s Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said on Thursday. Speaking at the opening of the panel discussion on “Changing Dynamics and Longstanding Alliance: Stronger with Turkiye for 70 Years,” in Ankara, Altun highlighted Turkey’s contributions to NATO missions and operations as well as relations with the pact. NATO stands as the largest and most institutionally advanced alliance in the history of the world and it has made significant contributions to peace and stability across the globe ever since its establishment, according to Altun. “NATO today is not just an alliance, it has gone beyond alliance and transformed into an international institution where many countries cooperate in the name of security,” he said, adding that alliances were expected to dissolve following the disintegration of an enemy figure but that has not been the case with NATO. Turkey joined the military alliance of 30 North American and European countries in 1952. The country has also been providing permanent naval assistance to NATO missions in the Aegean Sea while leading regional initiatives, including the Standing NATO Maritime Group’s (SNMG) activities in the Black Sea region. Turkey also hosts many NATO initiatives. There is a NATO headquarters in the western Izmir province, an air base in southern Adana province, another one in Diyarbakır and a NATO Rapid Deployable Corps in Istanbul. It also hosts the AN/TPY-2 radar in eastern Malatya province as part of the organization’s missile shield project. Apart from all these, in 2018 alone, Turkey contributed $101 million (TL 1.3 billion) to the common funding of NATO. Although some claimed NATO expired and was referred to as “brain dead” by a leader of a NATO-member country, the organization still maintains its position in global politics, said Altun, also noting that the alliance was a strong international organization stretching from continental America to the borders of Asia with 30 members. He said that Turkey had always viewed NATO as a strategic and valuable alliance bringing peace and stability to not only the member states but the globe. “Like all countries, Turkey also has relations with non-NATO countries. These ties should not be regarded as an alternative to NATO,” he said. “Turkey is one of NATO’s most active, most reliable allies and it did not join NATO solely as a result of its geographical features,” he said, stressing that Ankara made contributions to the pact even prior to becoming a member. The official went on to say that Turkey was among the top five alliance members making the most contributions to missions and operations, as seen in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and Turkey undertook the responsibility for NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) in 2021. Emphasizing that Turkey has always viewed the alliance as an important instrument of its agenda for security and foreign policy, he said his country was standing at the very center of the geopolitical future of NATO. While Turkey fulfills its responsibilities toward the international organization, it also has expectations from NATO and member countries to contribute to stability and peace across its region and the world, said Altun. He called on NATO to support efforts for stability on European borders more intensively as developments in Syria in the past decade demonstrated the fact that instability could spread to the whole world and issues such as terror and migration emanating from the Syrian crisis were still awaiting solutions. Altun said his country simultaneously fought multiple terrorist groups in Syria, such as the Daesh and the PKK, but failed to get the expected support from NATO allies. Turkey’s counterterrorism efforts for sake of self-defense also serve anti-terror expectations of NATO and global terrorism, threat, according to Altun, who was critical of some NATO allies who he said were “hand-to-hand” with terrorist groups, let alone supporting Turkey in its battle against terrorism, and it was “unacceptable” for Ankara that some allies were trying to use one terrorist group to fight another.

Turkey-Israel relations have improved

Dov Zakheim, 2-18, 22, The Hil, Thanks to the Ukraine crisis, Turkey and Israel have begun to reconcile, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/594770-thanks-to-the-ukraine-crisis-turkey-and-israel-have-begun-to

Naftali Bennet’s visit to Bahrain, the first ever by an Israeli prime minister, the warm welcome that the country’s King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa extended to him at the royal palace, and the announcement that Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa will visit Israel all have garnered considerable attention among the news media and Middle East observers. That Israel will station a military official in the country — no doubt without objection from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain’s neighbor across the causeway that links them — is yet another indication of the growing security cooperation between Gulf Arabs and the Jewish state. There is, however, another relationship with Israel that is developing at the same time in the eastern Mediterranean. After years of friction and vocal support for Israel’s arch enemy, Hamas, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey has begun to reach out to Jerusalem. Erdoğan also has been mending fences with other regional actors, most notably the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He recently visited the UAE for the first time in a decade and had what was described as an “excellent meeting” with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. The outreach to Israel takes on special significance, however, because of the overt hostility that dominated interaction between the two countries for years. Relations spiraled downward after the Israeli war with Hamas in 2008-09. They hit a low point after the May 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when Israeli commandos seeking to prevent the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” from reaching Hamas-ruled Gaza, boarded the ship and killed nine passengers, of whom eight were Turkish nationals. In 2016, there was a short-lived improvement in relations between the two countries, including restoration of full diplomatic relations, when their parliaments ratified an agreement that included compensation to the families of those who had died or were injured on the Mavi Marmara. Within two years, however, relations plummeted once again when Washington recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move to which Erdoğan bitterly objected. Throughout the period of political friction, however, Israel and Turkey maintained significant trade relations, exceeding $6 billion by the beginning of this year. Over $4.5 billion of that sum consisted of Turkish exports to Israel, making it an important trading partner for Ankara. In addition, Turkish Airlines did not cease to fly to Tel Aviv, though El Al suspended its flights to Turkey for a decade, because of security concerns, until it resumed them in 2020. A week ago, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu phoned his Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid. The call was ostensibly to enquire after Lapid’s health; the Israeli had come down with COVID-19. Such Turkish solicitousness for an Israeli official was highly unusual — it was the first conversation between Turkish and Israeli foreign ministers in 13 years. Yet the phone call followed a condolence call from Erdoğan to Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the loss of his mother. Erdoğan’s new warmth toward a state that he consistently has vilified is happening in part because of the Ukraine crisis. To begin with, Erdoğan had hoped to act as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia, because he thought he had a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin evidently was not interested, much to Erdoğan’s annoyance. Moreover, despite its good relations with Russia, Turkey supported Azerbaijan in its latest conflict with Armenia, which long has been close to Moscow. Even more tellingly, Turkey denounced Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and has expanded its military cooperation with Ukraine. The prospect of both the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and the possibility that sanctions could target the TurkStream pipeline that carries gas from Russia to Turkey, which is then pumped to Europe, has led Erdoğan to consider an arrangement that would enable Turkey to supply Europe with Israeli gas. How far Turkish-Israeli relations can develop is an open question. To begin with, Israel has developed close ties with Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria, all of which have less-than-warm relations with Ankara. In addition, it is not at all clear that Putin will actually invade Ukraine. Indeed, even if he were only to take a small slice of that country — for example, the territory between Crimea and the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk provinces — the West might not respond with tougher sanctions and, in particular, Germany might not cancel the Nord Stream 2 project. Nevertheless, the Ukraine crisis clearly has accelerated an Israeli-Turkish rapprochement. Taken together with Ankara’s outreach to the UAE and other Gulf states, Turkey’s warmer relationship with Israel promises to realign the balance of power yet further in the always volatile Middle East.Even during times of difficulty, Turkey has been a strong NATO partner

Kemal Kirişci, Nonresident Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe, The Turkey Project, 2-16, 22, Can the Russia-Ukraine crisis offer an opportunity to re-anchor Turkey in NATO?, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/02/16/can-the-russia-ukraine-crisis-offer-an-opportunity-to-re-anchor-turkey-in-nato/

The crisis over Ukraine has reignited the geopolitical relevance of Turkey and NATO for each other. In recent years Western skepticism about Turkey’s NATO membership and reliability had grown significantly. There have been multiple reasons for this. NATO has been a target of constant populist abuse in Turkey. In the aftermath of the coup attempt in 2016, deputies from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) alleged NATO involvement, without presenting a shred of evidence, and even called it a “terror organization.” This allegation has been periodically nurtured by the government and most recently by a member of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s cabinet. Damage was also done by Ankara’s decision to purchase S-400 missiles from Russia, and a relentless diplomatic battle over them saw Turkey sanctioned by the United States and thrown out of the F-35 program. Turkish experts remain puzzled over the rationale behind the decision. Erdoğan’s threat to expel 10 Western ambassadors, seven of them from NATO allies, for criticizing the indefinite detention of philanthropist Osman Kavala fueled further skepticism about Turkey’s place in the alliance. Yet, below the radar, throughout this period Turkey has been a regular contributor to NATO missions. In Afghanistan it performed a wide range of tasks from providing security for Kabul’s airport to leading a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Wardak province. During 2021 Turkey led NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, placing thousands of its soldiers on standby ready to deploy within days for allied missions. Simultaneously it continued to participate with F-16s in the Baltic and Poland air policing missions and fulfilled NATO air surveillance tasks. With the Russian annexation of Crimea threatening to dramatically alter the military balance in the Black Sea, Turkey stepped up its efforts to support allied cooperation in the region. Turkish naval and air force assets regularly participate in exercises, such as the U.S. and Ukraine-hosted Sea Breeze, and patrol missions with units from NATO member countries. Lastly, independently of the state of its relations with the Soviet Union and later Russia, Turkey has persistently supported NATO’s enlargement including the “open door” policy.

Turkey not successfully negotiating the Russia-Ukraine dispute

The issue is not so much Turkey’s dependence on Russia per se but the fact that Ankara is not much more actively engaged in Western efforts to deter Moscow and resolve the current crisis. Erdoğan, in spite of his unequivocal support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity as well as enthusiasm for finding a negotiated solution to the crisis, is conspicuously absent from the high-level diplomatic efforts to coordinate a unified trans-Atlantic response, while Biden does not appear to consider Turkey as a core ally. Contacts have been limited to polite telephone calls between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Erdoğan’s advisor İbrahim Kalın.

Lack of democracy distances Turkey from the West

The problem lies in Turkey’s broader drift away from the West and the dramatic rise in the authoritarianism of its governance, taking Turkey well away from the shared democratic values which are supposed to bond NATO members. The most recent manifestation of this occurred when Erdoğan categorically dismissed the decision of the Council of Europe to initiate disciplinary action against Turkey for failing to abide by a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling calling for Kavala’s release. It was especially ironic that this occurred just as Erdoğan was leaving for a visit to Ukraine, a country which has risked — and experienced — war to be able to join the West and sustain a democratic way of life. Membership in the council, since its inception in 1949, and commitment to abide with by ECHR rulings had long been regarded as an affirmation of Turkey’s Western vocation.

Turkish mediation can solve the Ukraine crisis

Daily Sabah, 2-15, 22, Russia crisis can be solved with Turkish mediation: Ukrainian envoy, https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/russia-crisis-can-be-solved-with-turkish-mediation-ukrainian-envoy

The ongoing tension between Russia and Ukraine can be resolved peacefully with Turkey’s mediation, the Ukrainian ambassador to Ankara said on Monday. Speaking to reporters after opening the Turkey-Ukraine memorial forest in the southern Turkish province of Adana, Vasyl Bodnar said Russia is amassing soldiers along Ukrainian borders. “We expect this situation to be resolved peacefully. But of course, we are ready to defend ourselves, if necessary,” he said. The Ukrainian envoy hoped Russia will end this crisis before it turns into a war, adding: “We can resolve this situation peacefully with Turkey’s mediation.” About a recent visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Ukraine, Bodnar said the visit displayed Turkey’s high level of support. Following his visit to Kyiv earlier this month, Erdoğan said that he offered to host a summit of Russian and Ukrainian leaders in Turkey to de-escalate tensions and find a diplomatic solution to the current crisis. While there he reiterated that Turkey stands by its decision not to recognize the annexation of Crimea and declared Ankara’s support for Ukraine’s Crimean Platform initiative. The several deals signed between the two countries also showed “how serious and strong strategic partners we are,” Bodnar said. “That’s why we see the support and solidarity of both the government and the people of Turkey.” “We should not listen to the rumors that there is a crisis between Russia and the West, because this is actually a crisis between Russia and Ukraine,” the envoy added. Moscow and Kyiv have been locked in a conflict since hostilities in the eastern Donbass region broke out in 2014 after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, prompting fears it could be planning another military offensive against the former Soviet republic. The United States and its allies have warned of an imminent attack, and threatened Russia with “severe consequences.” Moscow, however, has denied it is preparing to invade Ukraine and said its troops are there for exercises. The Kremlin also issued a list of security demands from the West, including a rollback of troop deployments to some ex-Soviet states and guarantees that Ukraine and Georgia will not join NATO. Turkey has been closely following the developments and is in close contact with both Kyiv and Moscow. Ankara has also offered to mediate talks between them. Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s invitation to visit Turkey amid the tensions and will make the trip once the pandemic and schedules allow, the Kremlin said. If Turkey is assigned a mediator role following the meeting with Putin, Ankara will accept the offer to help in the Ukrainian crisis in this capacity and will try to do its part, Erdoğan also said. Turkey shares the Black Sea with Ukraine and Russia. While forging cooperation on defense and energy, Turkey has opposed Moscow’s policies in Syria and Libya, as well as its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. It has also sold sophisticated drones to Ukraine, angering Russia. Turkey has good ties with Kyiv and Moscow but has said it would do what is necessary as a NATO member if Russia invades. Turkey has expressed that it is willing to mediate between the two sides if they accept. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has suggested holding the Minsk trilateral meeting in Turkey, which Ankara has welcomed, since the gathering cannot be held in Belarus due to tensions with other countries.

Russia does not want Turkey’s mediation

Stein, 2-14, 22, Turkey’s Careful And Risky Fence-Sitting Between Ukraine And Russia – Analysis, https://www.eurasiareview.com/14022022-turkeys-careful-and-risky-fence-sitting-between-ukraine-and-russia-analysis/, Aaron Stein is the Director of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI).

The security situation in Turkey’s near-abroad can change rapidly and at any moment. Ankara has few good options to manage Russian actions, but it appears committed to trying to meet with Putin and to mediate a solution. The Russian government, at this time, appears to have no interest in any Turkish role. A large-scale war would test recent Turkish elite assumptions about the future of great power conflict and could have broader implications for the defense industry. Only time will tell, but, at some point, Ankara may have to make broader decisions about its future foreign policy that either risk its relations with Moscow or strain its ties with the West.

Russia does not want Turkey’s mediation

Turkey supported efforts to train Georgian forces and to oppose the illegal annexation of Crimea

German Marshall Fund, 2-13, 22, The Russia-Ukraine Crisis and Turkey’s Balancing Act, https://www.gmfus.org/event/russia-ukraine-crisis-and-turkeys-balancing-act

On the one hand, Turkey refused to lift restrictions on the size and number of US warships allowed to enter the Black Sea during Russia’s intervention in Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions and refused to implement US-EU sanctions on Russia in response to Crimea. On the other hand, it backed NATO programs to train and equip Georgian armed forces and did not recognize the annexation of Crimea to be legal

Turkey more supportive of NATO in the Ukraine than Germany

David Kamioner, 2-11, 12, Turkey Defies Russia On Ukraine, https://www.lifezette.com/2022/02/turkey-defies-russia-on-ukraine/?utm_source=home-headline

NATO member states have not deployed any troops to Ukraine, but they have provided assistance in the form of lethal aid, including missiles, drones and munitions. Germany, perhaps the most vital European member of NATO with its largest economy, shocked Kyiv when it provided just 5,000 helmets for Ukrainian troops, falling well short of the 100,000 helmets and protective vests requested. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in January approved the sale of drones to Ukraine and last week clearly stated Turkey’s willingness to ‘stand by and help’ Ukraine. Erdogan also stressed that ‘Turkey continues to support

Turkey buried troubles with NATO to support the Ukraine

Peter Aitken, 2-10, 22, Fox News, Turkey steps up Ukraine support as Germany remains distant, https://www.foxnews.com/world/turkey-ukraine-support-germany-distant

Turkey’s support of Ukraine in the face of a possible invasion by Russia, despite recent troubles with Europe, highlights Germany’s hesitancy as tensions remain high. “On the particular issue of Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine, I think Turkey’s playing a helpful role,” James Anderson, President of the Institute of World Politics and former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under President Trump, told Fox News Digital. “They have stated quite clearly that they oppose any further Russian invasion of Ukraine. They have clearly stated their opposition to Russia’s intervention in Georgia a few years ago. Those statements are welcome.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in January approved the sale of drones to Ukraine and last week clearly stated Turkey’s willingness to “stand by … and help” Ukraine. Erdogan also stressed that “Turkey continues to support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea,” during a meeting last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attend a welcoming ceremony at the Mariyinsky Palace in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 3, 2022. (Reuters) NATO member states have not deployed any troops to Ukraine, but they have provided assistance in the form of lethal aid, including missiles, drones and munitions. Germany, perhaps the most vital European member of NATO with its largest economy, shocked Kyiv when it provided just 5,000 helmets for Ukrainian troops, falling well short of the 100,000 helmets and protective vests requested. ‘Maturing’ relationship But Turkey, the second-largest nation in NATO, has stepped up to support Ukraine as part of a “maturing and growing relationship,” Anderson said. Turkey in September 2021 also commenced building the first of four Ada-Class corvette warships it will provide to Ukraine, the first of which may arrive as early as 2023, Naval News reported. Turkey’s strong support for Ukraine may surprise the West after recent strain on relations. Then-President Obama’s silence following a failed coup attempt in 2016 led Erdogan to accuse the U.S. of supporting the would-be rebels, and President Biden exchanged critical barbs with Erdogan shortly after taking office, criticizing Turkey’s withdrawal from an international agreement to protect women’s rights. “Turkey has been trending in the wrong direction on certain human rights issues,” Anderson explained, also citing recent trouble with Cyprus and Greece. “To include, you know, locking up journalists and members of the press, cracking down on civil society. That’s also a challenge.” Turkey’s ongoing saga over activist and philanthropist Osman Kavala hit a boiling point over the past two months. The Council of Europe in December signaled its intent to sanction Turkey over Kavala’s continued imprisonment after the European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkey to refer Kavala’s case to the European body. Erdogan responded by saying Turkey will not respect the Council of Europe, according to Reuters. Troubles aside But Turkey has put its troubles aside in order to help Ukraine, even if that help is more or less self-interested, Turkish scholar Kemal Kirisci told Fox News Digital. “I’m coming to recognize, more and more, how correct are a lot of friends and colleagues in the Turkish Foreign Ministry,” Kirisci, a non-resident scholar with the Brookings Institution, said. “For all the abuse coming out of Erdogan’s mouth about the U.S., Europe and NATO as well, that Turkey has diligently abided by its obligations to NATO, including the running of the VJTF.” Turkey has run the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) in Romania since the start of 2021 as an additional commitment to NATO. It also had maintained a defense expenditure of roughly 1.8% of GDP, short of the NATO-dictated 2% but well above the spending of Canada, Italy and, most notably, Germany, which only spends around 1.5% of GDP as a small increase from its roughly 1.2% for most of the past decade.

On-balance, Turkey has been a good ally and it controls access to the Black Sea

Prince Michael of Liechtenstein is the founder of GIS, 2-10, 22, Turkey: An important neighbor of Ukraine, https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/turkey-ukraine-mediate/

Turkey is an important regional power. It has long been geopolitical rivals with Russia in the Black Sea region, the Caucasus, the Balkans and the Middle East. It is also a staunch, longtime member of NATO, though recently its ties with the rest of the alliance have been strained. The tensions are widely due to diverging interests. Turkey is located in an extremely challenging geostrategic location, and must defend its own interests, which are not always strictly aligned with NATO’s. What is in Turkey’s vital interest is a strong, independent Ukraine to balance Russia’s power in the Black Sea region. Already, Ankara has made clear that its arms sales to Ukraine will continue, and recently inked a deal for the joint production of drones. Turkey has a highly developed defense industry and regularly engages in technological exchange with Ukraine. Moreover, the 1936 Montreux Convention gives Turkey control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, making it the guardian of naval access to the Black Sea. An armed conflict in the Sea would put huge stress on that international agreement, which Turkey sees as vital to its interests. Though the two are not friends, President Putin respects Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey as a country, and its defense forces. Moscow and Ankara communicate regularly to keep their differences from escalating into bigger conflicts. President Erdogan has offered to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow in the current crisis. Both sides seem to be open to this option. Both Ukraine and Moscow say they are adhering to the Minsk Protocol, meant to diffuse the conflict in the Donbas region. However, their interpretations of the agreement diverge, and transgressions occur regularly. Russia refuses to admit any blame. Ankara has a deep understanding of the region and the interests of the various players. If Turkey were to mediate, it could benefit Ukraine, keeping it from becoming a geopolitical football that is continually kicked around by the global powers. It could also help to remove some of the exaggerated emotion in the overall security discussion between Moscow and the West.

Russia and China have formed an anti-Democratic alliance

David Leonhardt, 2-9, 22, New York Times, A New Axis China and Russia have formed an “alliance of autocracies.”, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/09/briefing/china-russia-alliance.html

The last time Xi Jinping left China was more than two years ago, for a diplomatic trip to Myanmar. Days later, he ordered the lockdown of Wuhan, which began China’s aggressive “zero Covid” policy. By staying home, Xi has reduced his chances of contracting the virus and has sent a message that he is playing by at least some of the same pandemic rules as other Chinese citizens. Until last week, Xi had also not met with a single other world leader since 2020. He had conducted his diplomacy by phone and videoconference. When he finally broke that streak and met in Beijing on Friday with another head of state, who was it? Vladimir Putin. Their meeting led to a joint statement, running more than 5,000 words, that announced a new closeness between China and Russia. It proclaimed a “redistribution of power in the world” and mentioned the U.S. six times, all critically. The Washington Post called the meeting “a bid to make the world safe for dictatorship.” Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister of Australia, told The Wall Street Journal, “The world should get ready for a further significant deepening of the China-Russia security and economic relationship.” Ukraine and Taiwan The current phase of the relationship has its roots in Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. The European Union and the U.S. responded with economic sanctions on Russia that forced it to trade more with Asia, Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, notes. China stepped in, buying Russian oil, investing in Russian companies and more. “The conventional wisdom used to be that Putin didn’t want to get too close to China,” Anton said. That’s no longer the case. Russia returned the favor in recent years, buying equipment from Huawei, a Chinese tech giant, after the Trump administration tried to isolate the company. In the grandest sense, China and Russia are creating a kind of “alliance of autocracies,” as Steven Lee Myers, The Times’s Beijing bureau chief, puts it. They don’t use that phrase and even claim to be democracies. “Democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of states,” their joint statement read. “It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their state is a democratic one.” But the message that China and Russia have sent to other countries is clear — and undemocratic. They will not pressure other governments to respect human rights or hold elections. In Xi’s and Putin’s model, an autocratic government can provide enough economic security and nationalistic pride to minimize public opposition — and crush any that arises. “There are probably more countries than Washington would like to think that are happy to have China and Russia as an alternative model,” Steven told us. “Look how many countries showed up at the opening ceremony of Beijing 2022, despite Biden’s ‘diplomatic boycott.’ They included some — Egypt, Saudi Arabia — that had long been in the American camp.” Russia’s threat to invade Ukraine has added a layer to the relationship between Moscow and Beijing. The threat reflects Putin’s view — which Xi shares — that a powerful country should be able to impose its will within its declared sphere of influence. The country should even be able to topple a weaker nearby government without the world interfering. Beside Ukraine, of course, another potential example is Taiwan. For all these common interests, China and Russia do still have major points of tension. For decades, they have competed for influence in Asia. That competition continues today, with China now in the more powerful role, and many Russians, across political ideologies, fear a future of Chinese hegemony. Even their joint statement — which stopped short of being a formal alliance — had to elide some tensions. It did not mention Ukraine by name, partly because China has economic interests that an invasion would threaten. The two countries are also competing for influence in the melting waters of the Arctic. And China is nervous about Russia’s moves to control Kazakhstan, where many people are descended from modern-day China. “China and Russia are competing for influence around much of the world — Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America,” Lara Jakes, who covers the State Department from Washington, said. “The two powers have less than more in common, and a deep or enduring relationship that goes beyond transactional strategies seems unlikely.” As part of its larger effort to check China’s rise — and keep Russia from undermining global stability — the Biden administration is likely to look for ways to exacerbate any tensions between China and Russia, in Kazakhstan and elsewhere. The “alliance of autocracies” remains informal for now. But it is real, and it extends beyond China and Russia to include other countries — like Hungary, Turkey and Venezuela — that work together to minimize the effect of economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure. The world’s democracies face a growing and interconnected challenge from a very different political model.

Turkey will join Russia if abandoned by NATO

Alexandros Diakopoulos is former national security adviser to the Greek prime minister, 2-8, 22, Ukraine and Russia’s complex relationship with Turkey, https://www.ekathimerini.com/opinion/1177080/ukraine-and-russias-complex-relationship-with-turkey/

Historically, as far back as the Ottoman era, Turkey played one great power off another. It wanted to deftly pick neutrality and sit on the fence, waiting to be approached by the side that has the most to offer. Whenever it has an issue with Russia, it calls on NATO. Whenever it has a problem with the West, it threatens to join Russia. And it works. Indicatively, when Turkish warships threatened the French frigate Courbet, a clear violation of NATO tenets, only eight countries sided with France. The rest were afraid of “losing Turkey” to Russia.

Answers to: S-400 purchase from Russia: The US abandoned Turkey’s Turkey has tried to negotiate a solution

Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is a member of the steering committee of the National Agenda of the Future of Syria, and an advocacy consultant for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, a Lebanese nongovernmental organization focused on Track II diplomacy, 2-10, 22, Why a new missile system could solve Turkey’s US-Russia conundrum, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/turkeysource/why-a-new-missile-system-could-solve-turkeys-us-russia-conundrum/

Turkey continues to grapple with this problem a decade after seeking to bolster its defenses. In 2012, Syria shot down a Turkish jet, causing tensions to increase with Russia, the principal backer of the Bashar al-Assad regime. NATO members responded by deploying defense systems on the border with Syria. In October 2015, however, the United States (followed by other allies) started withdrawing Patriot missile-defense batteries, which the Turks saw as their first line of defense against Russian harassments. The United States did not plan to renew the deployment, but reassured Turkey of the capability to come back within a week, if needed. The Turks felt abandoned by NATO amid Russian aggression, given that the raison d’être of NATO is joint defense. Engaging with Putin Seventeen seconds prompted a rethink in Ankara. That’s how long a Russian jet spent in Turkish airspace in November 2015—before the Turks shot it down. Would a clash between Russia and Turkey ensue? NATO did not want to be dragged into a war with Russia. Sensing a lack of Western backup, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hedged his bet. He engaged with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and negotiations calmed tensions. Another factor in this shift: his growing suspicion that American allies were bolstering the People’s Protection Units (YPG), long regarded by the Turkish government as the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, its archenemy. In the summer of 2016, the Turkish incursion into northern Syria met no real resistance from Russia. A few months later, Erdogan and Putin announced that Turkey would buy the S-400. The deal raised eyebrows in Washington and Western European capitals, leading the United States to remove Turkey from its F-35 program. The rationale: protecting the highly advanced technology of the fighter jet from being captured by Russia. Tensions between the two NATO allies escalated as the United States cultivated Turkey’s neighbor and rival, Greece. Turkey is nonetheless a natural ally for the United States and the West, and vice versa. Turkey can counterbalance Russia in the Middle East as well as in Central Asia. Turkey is at odds with Russia in Syria, Libya, and the Caucasus. In private conversations, Turkish politicians assured their Western counterparts that the S-400 would remain in boxes, a German official told me on condition of anonymity. Yet as tensions increased with the United States, especially over support for the YPG, Erdogan played the S-400 card. During his US visit in September, he talked about buying a new tranche of the missile-defense system. The Turks, however, realize this point of pressure comes with a high political cost.

Turkey buried troubles with NATO to support the Ukraine

Peter Aitken, 2-10, 22, Fox News, Turkey steps up Ukraine support as Germany remains distant, https://www.foxnews.com/world/turkey-ukraine-support-germany-distant

On-balance, Turkey has been a good ally and it controls access to the Black Sea

Prince Michael of Liechtenstein is the founder of GIS, 2-10, 22, Turkey: An important neighbor of Ukraine, https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/turkey-ukraine-mediate/

Turkey balancing relations with Russia but siding with the West

Gaber, 2-9, 22, Yevgeniya Gaber is a PhD candidate in political science and senior analyst at the Centre for Contemporary Turkey Studies at Carleton University (Canada). She was formerly deputy director of the Ukrainian Diplomatic Academy. Her main area of interest is the foreign policy of Ukraine, Turkey, and the security problems of the Black Sea region, Turkey’s shuttle diplomacy in the Black Sea region, https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/foreign-and-security-policy/turkeys-shuttle-diplomacy-in-the-black-sea-region-5705/

The strategic partnership with the US and American sanctions against the Turkish defence industry, Turkey’s membership of NATO and its purchase of air defence systems from Russia, cooperation with Moscow in regional forums and standoffs in several frozen and ongoing armed conflicts all over the world – somewhat surprisingly, the Turkish government has managed to combine all these apparently incompatible components in its multi-pronged and consistently pragmatic foreign policy. Consistent in its inconsistency, Ankara’s ambiguous position on many foreign policy issues has significantly enriched not only diplomatic practice but also the language of politics. ‘Cooperative conflict’, ‘agreeing to disagree’ and even the difficult to negotiate ‘compartmentalisation’ (willingness to promote dialogue in certain spheres, while closing its eyes to irreconcilable contradictions in others) – different terms have been used by observers to describe the complex dynamic of Russian-Turkish relationsHowever, it seems that this time, the tone Russia has taken in its dialogue with the West and the threat of a direct intervention in Ukraine has left Ankara with little room for geopolitical manoeuvre in the Black Sea region. Turkey’s dependence on Russi Turkey’s attempts to maintain working relations with Russia even in the midst of serious crisis are completely understandable. In addition to their shared aversion to the prospect of NATO strengthening its military capacity close to their borders, Ankara and Moscow are connected through a tangled web of political arrangements in regions where they have overlapping interests. They also have close economic ties and common energy projects (from the Blue Stream and the TurkStream pipelines pumping Russian gas under the Black Sea to the Akkuyu nuclear power plant currently being constructed by Rosatom on the shores of the Mediterranean) Against the background of Russian-Turkish relations, strategic partnership with Ukraine is an example of a ‘natural alliance’. Obviously, any deterioration in relations with Moscow would automatically mean the loss of both the Russian market, which is important for Turkish manufacturers, and of the Russian tourists who are such welcome visitors in Turkish resorts. Besides, if necessary, Russia always has the option of ‘gas blackmail’ (the Russian Federation supplies around 40 per cent of Turkey’s domestic gas consumption) or the development of a new humanitarian crisis in Syria, triggering another wave of refugees on the Turkish borders. Against the backdrop of the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the unprecedented devaluation of the national currency over the last year, the weight of such problems risks overwhelming the already weakened Turkish economy. Lastly, there is Russia’s trump card of hybrid diplomacy. The possibility of ‘thawing’ unresolved conflicts through Russian peacekeeping efforts, the use of the Kurdish factor and the creation of another local hotbed of tension close to the Turkish border could allow Russia to place pressure on uncooperative ‘strategic partners’ in those cases where the ‘partners’ strategies’ do not coincide. In the majority of regional conflicts – whether Syria and Libya or the occupied territories of the GUAM countries (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) – Ankara and Moscow have been on opposite sides of the barricades, if not in direct military action, then at the very least at the negotiating table. And this does not exactly make the life of Turkish diplomats any easier. The Turkish courting of Ukrain Against the background of Russian-Turkish relations, encumbered by problems of the two countries’ complex past and an even more intricate geopolitical present, strategic partnership with Ukraine is an example of a ‘natural alliance’, based on almost complete convergence of interests with no significant controversies or tensions. Hence, the recent signing of a free trade agreement, among other deals, between the two countries. In 2021, Turkish investment in Ukraine’s economy to the tune of USD 4.5bn and USD 7.4bn in bilateral trade saw Turkey become Ukraine’s largest foreign investor. The containment of Russian military presence in the region and ensuring freedom of navigation on the Black Sea, the de-occupation of the Crimea and protecting the rights of Crimean Tartars, increasing bilateral trade and investment are just a few of the two countries’ shared priorities. The active development of cooperation in the military-technical sphere and in the defence industry – culminating in plans for the construction of a joint production plant for a new generation of drones – gradually elevated the bilateral relationship from ‘economically beneficial’ to ‘strategically important’. That said, the economic factor should certainly not be discounted: in 2021, Turkish investment in Ukraine’s economy to the tune of USD 4.5bn and USD 7.4bn in bilateral trade saw Turkey become Ukraine’s largest foreign investor and one of its top five foreign trade partners. In the event of a full-scale Russian military invasion, however, Ankara would have to forget about these figures, as well as the record two million Ukrainian tourists holidaying in Turkish resorts. How Turkey is helping itsel Thanks to Turkey’s foreign policy pragmatism and skilful balancing, so far it has managed to avoid the pitfalls of Black Sea politics and maintain cordial relations with both partners, who have already been at war with each other for eight years. Nevertheless, the threat of a new Russian incursion in Ukraine may still force Ankara to make an uncomfortable choice.None of the dilemmas that could arise in the event of further escalation will have a clear solution: whether or not to support the decision regarding sanctions against Moscow, when and how to implement the mechanisms of the Montreux Document, whether to participate in NATO’s Allied Maritime Command at sea or to remain a non-participating observer of Russian expansion on the ground. In this case, it would be easier to prevent such issues arising than try to resolve them. Turkey is no longer under the illusion that Russia has any real intentions of a ‘strategic partnership’. In this sense, by helping Ukraine prevent Russian escalation, Turkey is also helping itself – avoiding having to face a complex and undesirable choice, where there are no favourable outcomes. Moreover, if mediation initiatives are successful, through its ‘shuttle’ diplomacy, Ankara will be able to significantly strengthen its position, not only in the unsettled waters of the Black Sea but on the far shores of the Atlantic. Dominance over the Black Sea The constructive position of the Turkish leadership on the Ukrainian issue (refusing to recognise the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, consistently supporting Ukraine’s membership of NATO, and now also Erdogan’s attempts to act as a mediator between Zelensky and Putin by proposing Istanbul as a potential location for face-to-face meetings of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine) may significantly improve Ankara’s image in the eyes of its international partners. In addition, after the death of Turkish troops as a result of the Russian airstrike in Idlib and the standoff in Nagorno-Karabakh during the second Karabakh war, it seems as though Turkey is no longer under the illusion that Russia has any real intentions of a ‘strategic partnership’. The occupation and subsequent militarisation of Crimea, the increased military presence of Russia in the Middle East, the eastern Mediterranean, and the South Caucasus are, for Turkish experts, reminiscent of the centuries of Russian-Ottoman wars, which began with the decline of the Crimean Khanate and resulted in the fall of the entire Ottoman Empire. The de-facto annexation of Belarus and the deployment of CSTO forces in Kazakhstan called Ankara’s ambitions for regional leadership in the post-Soviet space into question. A new incursion in Ukraine would mean a de facto transformation of the Black Sea into a ‘Russian lake’ with direct access to ‘warm seas’ – a long-held dream of Moscow’s. This is something that Ankara must prevent – even if, to remain credible, the ‘shuttle’ diplomacy between the shores of the Black Sea needs the support of drones in the skies.

Russia not interested in Turkey’s conflict mediation

Aaron Stein is the Director of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), 2-8, 22, Turkey’s Careful and Risky Fence-Sitting between Ukraine & Russia, https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/02/turkeys-careful-and-risky-fence-sitting-between-ukraine-and-russia/

The Turkish-Russian relationship is multi-faceted, so Ankara faces an equally difficult challenge in severing ties with Moscow. Ankara, therefore, may not join the United States and Brussels in sanctioning Russia and, instead, continue to position itself as a potential arbiter between the two sides, even after a Russian invasion. The tensions between Ukraine and Russia have obvious implications for Turkish security. Ankara has ample incentives to “fence-sit” in the near term. This policy does not preclude defense cooperation with Ukraine, or even supporting broader NATO responses to reassure member states and to punish Moscow for an invasion. However, it does not mean that the United States should expect Erdogan to second U.S. actions and seek to engage with Russia continuously, even in the event of a conflict. The broader challenges that Ankara will face, though, are going to be outside of its control. The scope and size of a Russian military response depends on thinking in the Kremlin. For now, the signs point to a large-scale offensive. The Turkish relationship with Ukraine may, in fact, be at risk in such a scenario, and, beyond this, the security environment in the Black Sea could degrade and negatively impact Turkish interests. The Ukrainian-Turkish relationship is nuanced and complicated, but it also impacts Ankara’s thinking about its place in the world, as well as its defense relationship with the United States.

The security situation in Turkey’s near-abroad can change rapidly and at any moment. Ankara has few good options to manage Russian actions, but it appears committed to trying to meet with Putin and to mediate a solution. The Russian government, at this time, appears to have no interest in any Turkish role. A large-scale war would test recent Turkish elite assumptions about the future of great power conflict and could have broader implications for the defense industry. Only time will tell, but, at some point, Ankara may have to make broader decisions about its future foreign policy that either risk its relations with Moscow or strain its ties with the West.

Turkey has committed genocide in Syria, and killing the Kurds has increased ISIS’ strength

For its part, Russia established its presence in the country by saving the Assad regime while Turkey has occupied areas of northern Syria, conducting ethnic cleansing and forcibly moving the Kurdish population from its borders. The erosion of the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, the West’s only active ally in the region, materially favored the so-called Islamic State. In Libya, the presence of one country’s mercenary forces “legitimizes” the others.

Turkey will join Russia if abandoned by NATO

Historically, as far back as the Ottoman era, Turkey played one great power off another. It wanted to deftly pick neutrality and sit on the fence, waiting to be approached by the side that has the most to offer. Whenever it has an issue with Russia, it calls on NATO. Whenever it has a problem with the West, it threatens to join Russia. And it works. Indicatively, when Turkish warships threatened the French frigate Courbet, a clear violation of NATO tenets, only eight countries sided with France. The rest were afraid of “losing Turkey” to Russia.

Turkey has committed genocide in Syria, and killing the Kurds has increased ISIS’ strength

Turkey will join Russia if abandoned by NATO

Historically, as far back as the Ottoman era, Turkey played one great power off another. It wanted to deftly pick neutrality and sit on the fence, waiting to be approached by the side that has the most to offer. Whenever it has an issue with Russia, it calls on NATO. Whenever it has a problem with the West, it threatens to join Russia. And it works. Indicatively, when Turkish warships threatened the French frigate Courbet, a clear violation of NATO tenets, only eight countries sided with France. The rest were afraid of “losing Turkey” to Russia.

NATO praising Turkey for its role in the Ukraine

Saily Sabah, 2-7, 22, https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/nato-chief-thanks-erdogan-for-efforts-to-solve-ukraine-russia-crisis, NATO chief thanks Erdoğan for efforts to solve Ukraine-Russia crisis

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday thanked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his contribution to finding a political solution for the Russia-Ukraine crisis and his personal efforts. In a message he posted on Twitter, Stoltenberg said they discussed Russia’s buildup in and around Ukraine. “I thanked him for his active support and personal engagement to find a political solution, and welcomed Turkey’s strong practical support to Ukraine,” he said. Stoltenberg continued by noting that the bloc remains ready to find a solution through dialogue. A latter statement released by Ankara also underlined the phone call between the two leaders. According to the statement, Erdoğan and Stoltenberg discussed regional developments, particularly the tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Underlining that Turkey has been spending efforts for an end to the crisis, Erdoğan said that Ankara has been acting based on a logic of calming the existing tensions. Expressing that he shared his opinion with all his counterparts that the crisis will be ended by peaceful and diplomatic means within the framework of the Minsk Agreements on the basis of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and international law, Erdoğan added that he shared with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on several occasions that Turkey would gladly host a summit at the leadership level or talks at the technical level. If Turkey is assigned a mediator role following the meeting with Putin, Ankara will accept the offer to help in the Ukrainian crisis in this capacity and will try to do its part, Erdoğan said Friday. Speaking to reporters on his way back from Ukraine where he met with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, Erdoğan said that the Western countries were unable to contribute to the solution to the Ukraine-Russia tensions and there are no European leaders fit to resolve it. Ukraine and Russia have been locked in conflict since hostilities in the eastern Donbass region broke out in 2014 after Russia illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Erdoğan’s visit to Turkey’s fellow Black Sea nation came after visits to Kyiv by leaders of NATO members Britain, Poland and the Netherlands amid the standoff. Turkey has good ties with Kyiv and Moscow but has said it would do what is necessary as a NATO member if Russia invades. Russia has denied plans to invade Ukraine amid concern by many Western nations over its buildup of more than 100,000 troops near the border, but has demanded sweeping security guarantees from the West and says it could take unspecified military measures if its demands are not met. Ankara has previously offered to help defuse the standoff and Turkish diplomatic sources have said both Russia and Ukraine were open to the idea. Turkey has opposed the sanctions threatened by other NATO members in response to a military incursion by Russia. Turkey shares the Black Sea with Ukraine and Russia. Erdoğan has said the conflict would be unacceptable in the region and warned Russia that an invasion would be unwise. While forging cooperation on defense and energy, Turkey has opposed Moscow’s policies in Syria and Libya, as well as its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. It has also sold sophisticated drones to Ukraine, angering Russia.

Ukraine war will kill 85,000 people and trigger a flood of 5 million refugees

Hurriety Daily, 2-7, 22, Diplomatic flurry to avert Russia-NATO clash over Ukraine, https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/diplomatic-flurry-to-avert-russia-nato-clash-over-ukraine-171333

They said Russia is on track to amass a large enough force — some 150,000 soldiers — for a full-scale invasion by mid-February. Such a force would be capable of taking the capital Kyiv in a matter of 48 hours in an onslaught that would kill up to 50,000 civilians, 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 10,000 Russian troops and trigger a refugee flood of up to five million people, mainly into Poland, the officials added. On top of the potential human cost, Ukraine fears further damage to its already struggling economy. And if Moscow attacks Ukraine it could face retaliation over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline — set to double natural gas supplies from Russia to Germany — with Berlin threatening to block it.

Turkey will support NATO over Russia on the Ukraine

WION, 2-6, 22, https://www.wionews.com/world/erdogan-reiterates-turkeys-determination-to-support-ukraines-territorial-integrity-450943, Erdogan reiterates Turkey’s determination to support Ukraine’s territorial integrity

He reiterated Turkey’s determination to support Ukraine’s territorial integrity added that US President Joe Biden “has not yet been able to demonstrate a positive approach”. His comments come days after his visit to his counterpart Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. Erdogan has tried to position Turkey, which is a member of the NATO defence alliance, as a neutral mediator close to both Moscow and Kyiv. Also see | Beyond full scale attack on Ukraine, what are other risky options does Russia have? Turkey has good ties with Kyiv and Moscow but has said it would do what is necessary as a NATO member if Russia invades. Russia has denied plans to invade Ukraine amid concern by many Western nations over its build up of more than 100,000 troops near the border, but has demanded sweeping security guarantees from the West and says it could take unspecified military measures if its demands are not met. With growing nervousness in Eastern Europe over Russia’s buildup, much attention is focused on its placement of thousands of troops in Belarus, which shares a border not only with Ukraine but also with three NATO nations, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia Erdogan and Zelensky also signed an agreement expanding the production of parts in Ukraine for a Turkish combat drone whose sale to Kyiv has angered Moscow. Ankara has previously offered to help to defuse the standoff and Turkish diplomatic sources have said both Russia and Ukraine were open to the idea. Turkey has opposed the sanctions threatened by other NATO members in response to a military incursion by Russia

Turkey mediated talks fail

Nicholas Morgan, 2-6, 22, Erdoğan’s uphill battle to make peace in the Donbas, https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-ukraine/erdogans-uphill-battle-make-peace-donbas

For months, the United States and NATO warned that Russia was preparing for a military offensive into Ukraine as Russian military units and equipment from as far away as Siberia mass along their border. Moscow denies it is contemplating invasion, but President Putin has demanded that the West offer Russia security guarantees that include a withdrawal of NATO forces to its 1997 borders and formally renounce any possibility of Ukraine joining the alliance. NATO has refused and successive rounds of talks between Washington and Moscow have failed to achieve any breakthroughs. If a war was to take place to its north, Turkey would be forced into a precarious situation because of its good ties with Russia and Ukraine. Before heading to Ukraine, Erdoğan said that any “negative developments” in the region would “not be right for us” and he reiterated a willingness to mediate between his two partners. But despite sincere hopes to resolve the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas, the Turkish leader has taken upon himself a tall task with uncertain prospects for success. Though maligned by the West for his good relations with Putin, for Zelensky, this may actually work as an advantage for negotiations. The first and last time Zelensky met with Putin was in December 2019 as part of negotiations of the Normandy Format in Paris alongside the leaders of France and Germany, but the Ukrainian president has spoken of his readiness to resume talks with Russia. However, Putin, who is said to not view Zelensky as an equal partner, has not yet been receptive to any talks. “The Ukrainian president is trying to use every opportunity to arrange a meeting with Putin in order to avoid a war,” Petro Burkovskyi, a senior fellow at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in Kyiv, told Ahval. “Turkey is a NATO member, U.S. ally, and a Russian rival that is treated with respect by Putin. Zelensky’s advisors hope that this can help.” But bringing all the parties of the conflict to the negotiating table, including the separatist leadership in Donbas, promises to be a challenge. Turkish media reports that the next meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), the forum responsible for facilitating peace in Donbas, will take place in Istanbul at an unspecified date, something that has not been confirmed by Russia or Ukraine. There are also technical issues that Turkey would need to solve before any negotiations. For instance, Sergiy Garmash, a Ukrainian delegate to the TCG, said that moving the forum to Istanbul was not well-received by pro-Russian separatists, who complained that visa problems could prevent them from going to Istanbul for talks. He added that the Russians also expressed that they would rather see them move to a city in eastern Ukraine or Moscow if they were to leave Minsk. On the presidential level, the problems become more complicated. Officially, Russia denies that it is a participant in the war in the Donbas, a position Moscow referred to when it rejected Erdoğan’s initial offer to host Putin and Zelensky together. If Erdoğan’s invitation was accepted, Putin would be acting in contradiction to Russia’s stance of being uninvolved in the Donbas, said Dr. Kerim Has, a Moscow-based analyst on Turkish-Russian relations and Russian foreign policy. “Moscow rejects the idea of sitting around the table with Kyiv to discuss the Donbas as it will strengthen the perception that is ‘de jure’ the opposite side of the conflict,” Has explained to Ahval. Before heading to Ukraine, Erdoğan told reporters that Putin had agreed to visit Turkey following the latter’s trip to China for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The Kremlin acknowledged this, but conditioned any visit by Putin on the COVID-19 situation in Turkey before a date is confirmed. On Friday, Putin’s press secretary Dmitriy Peskov stressed that “there is no understanding” or “practical discussion” on Putin attending any talks with Zelensky in Turkey. “The President says that he is ready to meet with anyone for the sake of business, but this requires an understanding of what is the output and what will be discussed. There is no such understanding yet,” said Peskov. Daria Isachenko, a research fellow at the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, said that it was possible that Turkey would play a role in hosting TCG talks, but expressed doubt on whether Erdoğan would succeed in bringing Putin and Zelensky into the same room. Putin’s positions on Donbas as well as Crimea are “not unknown to Erdoğan”, she said, adding that it was imperative for Turkey to not risk upsetting Russia. “It is not in the interests of Turkey to antagonise Russia, nor the other way around,” Isachenko told Ahval. “Both sides are keen to keep their working relationship going as it covers not only bilateral ties such as nuclear energy, but also conflict management in the Middle East and South Caucasus.” For the last five years, Ankara and Moscow have conducted a complicated dance of competition and cooperation in both regions, backing opposing sides only to later cut deals that secure their interests. But Ukraine is no ordinary arena for competition between the two, given the personal importance it carries for Putin as well as the country being at the heart of what Russia perceives as its sphere of influence. Has, the Moscow-based expert, said that Russia is disinclined to accept a further role for Turkey in Ukraine because of its overall desire to limit Turkish involvement in the realm of the former Soviet Union, a point echoed by members of the Russian State Duma. “Russia doesn’t want to include Erdoğan and his ambitions more into the post-Soviet space after the second Karabakh war and play any role in facilitating [Turkey’s] influence in its ‘backyard’,” said Has. Russia, he continued, is conscientious of Erdoğan’s domestic political woes and does not want him to “use Russia’s problems as an instrument to strengthen his own image” back home. “I don’t think Moscow is willing to give Erdoğan such credit,” the analyst added. Even if Erdoğan is ultimately successful in bringing together Putin and Zelensky, it remains unclear what he hopes to achieve beyond talks under his watch. Since last year, Erdoğan said he believes that a solution must come through implementation of the existing Minsk Agreement, a point he repeated during his visit to Ukraine. This position is seen as being tilted in Russia’s favour. Zelensky’s advisors said that they would look for ways to implement the deal. However, Ukraine has consistently balked at provisions that call for constitutional changes that they see as a backdoor for Russian influence over its domestic affairs. If Turkey does succeed in convincing Ukraine to move ahead on Minsk as Russia hopes, Burkovskyi warned that any arrangement that resembles previous Russian-Turkish dealmaking would come at the risk of leaving Ukraine “without guarantees that Russia would not start everything again”. Ultimately, Erdoğan may also be running into the limits of his influence to alter the situation. To many observers, Russia’s threats to Ukraine are less central than its desire to renegotiate the entire post-Cold War security architecture in Europe. This is something the Kremlin believes can only be achieved through concessions from the United States as the West’s leading power. As for Turkey, Isachenko said that Russia’s main expectation of it would be to continue to remain neutral. “The current position of Moscow now seems to stick to its ultimatum on security guarantee questions negotiating with the United States and hoping that as far as Donbas is concerned, Kyiv’s Western partners would be doing something to convince Ukraine to implement the Minsk agreements,” said Isachenko

New Turkey-Ukraine drone deal and free trade agreement

Charlotte Pence-Bond, 2-3, 22, Ukraine, Turkey Secure Deals Amid Russia Tension, https://www.dailywire.com/news/ukraine-turkey-secure-deals-amid-russia-tension

The leaders of Ukraine and Turkey met on Thursday amid ongoing escalating tension between Ukraine and Russia, signing a free-trade deal and securing an agreement for Ukraine to create Turkish armed drones.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed to mediate discussions between Russia and Ukraine. Erdogan said Turkey was “prepared to undertake its part in order to end the crisis between two friendly nations that are its neighbors in the Black Sea.” “I have stressed that we would be happy to host a summit meeting at a leadership level or technical level talks,” Erdogan said hours of discussion with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Instead of fueling the fire, we act with the logical aim of reducing the tensions.” “We will continue to support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea,” Erdogan said after a signing ceremony in Kyiv. When Erdogan left the Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv, he turned toward the Ukrainian honor guard and, speaking Ukrainian, said, “Glory to Ukraine!” The honor guard responded with the traditional phrase, “Glory to heroes!” The Wall Street Journal reported: Bilateral trade between Ankara and Kyiv has grown sharply in recent years, jumping 60% in 2021 from a year earlier to $7.5 billion. The free-trade agreement signed during Mr. Erdogan’s visit to Kyiv aims to increase bilateral trade to $10 billion, the Turkish president said. In a joint briefing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the deal to broaden manufacturing infrastructure for Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones in Ukraine. “These are new technologies, new workplaces, and an increase in Ukraine’s ability to defend itself,” he said. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told Reuters that the drones agreement created “favourable conditions for Turkish manufacturers to build a drone factory in Ukraine so that we can produce the entire line of drones and get their high technologies.” “I would like to thank President Erdogan for his initiative to become a mediator between Ukraine and Russia on the way to ending the war,” Zelensky said. The two leaders did not provide specifics about their discussions regarding Russia and reportedly did not answer questions. In the past, Erdogan created tension in the West after deciding in 2017 to purchase the S-400 air-defense system from Russia. However, Erdogan has reportedly been attempting to improve relationships with the United States, as well as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel. “All this is prompted by Erdogan’s need to show the Turkish public that Turkey is a regional, even a global power,” a former senior Turkish official said, per the Journal. “The Ukraine mediation effort is another link in the chain.” On Thursday, U.S. officials said they had gathered intelligence regarding Russia conspiring to utilize a false video in order to invent an excuse to invade Ukraine. The New York Times reported that the U.S. is hoping to ruin the strategy by publicizing it

Turkey supports NATO on the Ukraine and opposes Russia on key issues

Daily Sabah, 2-1, 22, Turkey’s dialogue with Russia, Ukraine continues: Defense Minister, https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/turkeys-dialogue-with-russia-ukraine-continues-defense-minister

Turkey’s dialogue with both Moscow and Kyiv continues amid tensions between the two countries, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Monday, underlining that Ankara also upholds its NATO responsibilities within this scope. “The status of the straits (regarding the rules on the passage of ships of the Black Sea and non-Black Sea countries) set by the convention benefits all parties. In the current circumstances, there is no question of abandoning this convention. As for the Black Sea dialogue, Turkey is doing everything it should. We will continue our dialogue with Russia and Ukraine and we will fulfill our NATO obligations,” Akar was quoted by Turkish broadcaster TRT as saying. Akar elaborated on the situation in the Black Sea region, saying Turkey’s dialogue with both Ukraine and Russia continues while it undertakes its responsibilities within NATO as part of the alliance. He underlined that the Montreux Convention of 1936 regulated the use of the Turkish Straits and the transit of naval warships to the Black Sea is essential to security and stability in the region. Referring to the latest tensions between Russia and Ukraine and the West, he warned that this posed the danger of uncontrolled escalation. “As such, we, as Turkey, urge all parties concerned to remain calm and engage in coordination, cooperation and dialogue,” he added. The U.S. with its European allies has been warning that Russia is setting the stage for an invasion of Ukraine and has pre-positioned over 100,000 troops on its border with the former Soviet republic alongside significant artillery and tank deployments. Moscow has denied preparing for a military offensive, saying its troops are there for regular exercises. Turkey has been closely following the developments and is in close contact with both Kyiv and Moscow. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had said Turkey could mediate between the neighbors amid increasing tensions in the region and recently announced a visit to Ukraine on Feb. 3 to help defuse tensions; likewise, Putin said he would visit Turkey upon Erdoğan’s invitation when the pandemic situation and schedules allow. NATO member Turkey has friendly ties with both Kyiv and Moscow but opposes Russian policies in Syria and Libya, as well as its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Kyiv has also bought Turkish drones to possibly use against Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine, angering Moscow, and agreed with Ankara to manufacture the drones locally this year. Since 2014, Russia has been supporting separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, a policy it has maintained for the past eight years. In response to Russia’s actions, NATO enhanced its presence in the eastern bloc, with four multinational battalion-size battle groups deployed to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland on a rotational basis.

Turkey aligned with NATO on core issues

Middle East Monitor, 1-31, 22, Turkey is ‘credible and important ally,’ says NATO official, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220131-turkey-is-credible-and-important-ally-says-nato-official/

A NATO official has confirmed Turkey’s role as a “credible and important” ally, dispelling rumours of Ankara’s expulsion from the alliance. According to the London-based news outlet, Middle East Eye, a European NATO official told it on the condition of anonymity that “Turkey is showing itself to be a credible and important ally” during the ongoing Ukraine crisis. As tensions continue to mount in Ukraine between NATO and Russia, Turkey has maintained its largely neutral and mediatory stance, despite having supplied Kyiv with armed combat drones and warning Moscow against conducting an invasion of the country. Earlier this month, reports emerged that the Turkish government’s offer to mediate between Russia and Ukraine was being considered by the two adversaries. The unnamed NATO official praised Ankara’s ability to hold its neutral position, saying, “You can see some elements of tension between countries in Europe [over Ukraine], but Turkey hasn’t been one of those actors”. They acknowledged that while “it doesn’t shy away from publicly presenting differences it might have with alliance members, when it comes to the hardcore part of NATO business, Turkey has not been a stumbling block.” The official’s comments contradict the view long held amongst many that Turkey is on the brink of expulsion from the alliance, as it has launched its own foreign policy initiatives by intervening in Syria and Libya, as well as clashing with fellow NATO members, Greece and France, in the eastern Mediterranean in recent years. Much of the controversy also stemmed from Ankara’s growing relations with Moscow over the years, which the United States and Western nations saw as a threat to the alliance. Turkey, however, has consistently stressed that its relations with Russia and its purchase of Russia’s S-400 anti-missile defence system do not breach any NATO security measures. Last week, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reiterated that there “should be no doubt” about his country honouring “its commitments as a NATO ally”. Regarding those relations with Moscow, the official said “Turkey puts a premium on talking with Russia,” but that it “fulfils all of its obligations as a NATO member”. They confirmed that “by the narrow confines of [the NATO treaty],” Turkey is allowed to “do a lot in terms of its own defence and national policy”.

Russia is a threat a threat to Europe, NATO not currently prepared

Walsh, 1-31, 22, Garvan Walshe is a former national and international security policy advisor to the British Conservative Party and the founder and CEO of Article7., Europe Must Shed Its Illusions About Russia, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/31/europe-russia-putin-ukraine-germany-france-nato-uk-illusions/

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troop buildup along Ukraine’s borders initially caught Western powers off guard. Russia’s first invasion in 2014 didn’t get the West to abandon its post-Cold War daydreams. But there are signs that Putin’s threat of another invasion is now forcing the West to shed its illusions. The United States, France, Britain, and Germany each have their own fantasies: Washington wants to think Europe is done and the United States can now focus on confronting a proper superpower rival, China, forgetting that Putin’s rearmed post-Soviet Russia is still strong enough to menace America’s allies. France wants strategic autonomy for Europe—being able to act independently of the United States on the world stage—while thinking it can control European foreign policy with only 13 percent of democratic Europe’s population. Britain would like to forget its own continent from which, in former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s words, “all our troubles came” and recreate a maritime relationship with trading hubs in Asia, forgetting the great game that lies between. Germany still clings to the belief that just because it has abandoned force as an instrument of policy, its eastern neighbors, even authoritarian Russia, must have done so as well, and that Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which bypasses Eastern Europe to supply Germany with gas directly, is just a “private sector project.” Each figment avoids uncomfortable facts: As much as China might be the only “peer competitor” (to use the language of the U.S. Defense Department’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review), Russia is currently powerful enough to project power in Syria and Libya as well as destabilize Europe by sponsoring a coup in Montenegro, cutting off gas to Moldova, stirring up irredentism in Bosnia, and, of course, seizing Crimea and invading the Donbass. Germany still clings to the belief that just because it has abandoned force as an instrument of policy, its eastern neighbors, even authoritarian Russia, must have done so as well. Notwithstanding China’s speedy economic development, U.S. trade volumes with Europe are almost double those with China ($1.1 trillion compared to $643 billion in goods and services, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative). The discrepancy in investment figures is starker. The United States and European Union invest around $2 trillion each way. Investment flows to and from China are less than 5 percent of those that cross the Atlantic Ocean. Even if cultural ties and shared democratic values are discounted, a stable and prosperous Europe is in the United States’ interest. France, like Britain, is a globally minded power that no longer has the global resources to back its ambitions. But unlike Britain, it has, through the EU, an instrument for global power it wants to use. French differences with the United States have often been exaggerated for domestic political consumption. France was reportedly ready to launch airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with the Americans even after the British pulled out, and I have even heard from French sources who wish to remain anonymous that Paris scoped out unilaterally liberating Crimea in 2014. However, such muscularity is not the same as turning the EU into a geopolitical actor capable of acting on its own. Poland, the Baltic states, and Nordic countries still suspect that Paris, which was on the verge of selling Russia an advanced amphibious landing craft until those “little green men” appeared in Crimea, can’t be counted on if things turn ugly. Poles, especially, haven’t forgotten how France lived up to its guarantee of defending Poland from the Nazis by hiding behind the Maginot Line. Britain, which these days self-defines as global, is finding that stability in Europe is not so much an impediment as a precondition for its global ambitions. Notwithstanding cultural and political ties to the United States and other prosperous former colonies as well as the security benefits from initiatives like the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network—also involving the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—the United Kingdom is physically located in Europe, and it is only from European Russia that state-level threats to British security can emerge. The U.K. has very publicly supported Ukraine; British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace took Putin to task and supplied it with advanced anti-tank weapons. It has been less than assiduous, however, in clamping down on what the world might call Bank Stream 2: money flows of questionable provenance into London, including from Russian oligarchs enriched by Putin’s regime. Upholding global democratic values while laundering the world’s kleptocrats’ money might, with British understatement, be described as not entirely consistent. Germany’s problem is, in many ways, the most acute. It goes beyond embarrassments like former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder working for Russian government gas pipeline operator Rosneft, the country’s inability to muster more than 5,000 helmets for Ukraine (Can the Bundeswehr’s logistics problems really be that bad?). Berlin must accept that good relations with former Soviet satellites, like Poland and the Baltic states, and with a Russia determined to reestablish the Soviet empire they escaped from are not simultaneously possible. It is not even due to Germany’s understandable pacifism. It is rather that Berlin must face up to a deeper contradiction in its Ostpolitik: that good relations with former Soviet satellites, like Poland and the Baltic states, and with a Russia determined to reestablish the Soviet empire they escaped from are not simultaneously possible. Even if it is getting harder these days to justify taking, say, Poland’s side on democratic grounds, the global economic balance is now in favor of the satellites. German trade with Russia amounts to $51 billion a year, whereas that with the other former Soviet satellites now in the European Union is worth $384 billion. Putin’s aggression is forcing all these powers to confront their post-Cold War naivety. The United States is now ready to base troops in Eastern Europe, where NATO’s presence has been limited to rotational deployments in an evidently unsuccessful attempt to appease Russia. France has announced it would send around 1,000 ground troops as well as air assets to Romania. Tanks in Poland or the Baltic states would be better still. Britain will also step up arms shipments and training. Joining the EU’s military mobility Permanent Structured Cooperation project (which the United States has also joined) would mark a shift to a form of Brexit where Britain coexisted constructively with Brussels. There are even reports of movement in Berlin: If weapons exports to Ukraine are still out of the question, Germany’s new no-nonsense foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has put blocking Nord Stream 2 and financial sanctions back on the table. There is still some way to go before European powers fully face reality. Deploying NATO forces, including a significant French presence, permanently to Eastern Europe is one step. Reinforcing infrastructure to ensure they can arrive on time from as far away as Britain is another. Systematic financial sanctions on Russian economic and financial activity would show resolve, as would large-scale economic support and weapons supplies so Ukraine can defend itself. Finally, the EU and Britain need to rapidly reduce their energy dependence on Russia and carry out a comprehensive crackdown on money laundering and influence operations. This is what fully abandoning those post-Cold War illusions would involve: realizing that the best way to avert war with Putin’s Russia is to confront the Kremlin by all other means. These changes may come too late to deter Putin from invading Ukraine, but they make an invasion considerably more costly and limit his room for maneuver. More than 30 years after the end of the first Cold War, European powers and the United States may finally be recognizing that a second one cannot be avoided.

US-Turkey-NATO relationship is zero-sum: Losing Turkey means they go to Russia

Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, a Lebanese nongovernmental organization focused on Track II, 1-30, 22, Can Turkey turn a crisis into an opportunity?, https://www.arabnews.com/node/2014996

Meanwhile US President Joe Biden has made it clear that there will be no military intervention in Ukraine, and that any response will be limited to economic sanctions. The role of Turkey is therefore of prime importance. Turkey has already sent drones to Kyiv, upsetting Vladimir Putin, which the US would want to encourage. Turkey has been swinging between the camps, and the US would definitely not want it to strengthen ties with Moscow. Again, Turkey can find a sweet spot where it can have leverage with the US. The relationship has been mainly transactional, and based on mutual blackmail. Will Turkey put pressure on the US to halt, or at least reduce, its support for Kurdish forces in Syria? That is a tricky issue for the US. It cannot withdraw support while Daesh appears to be re-emerging and gaining momentum in previously liberated areas. Turkey may also try to reopen the issue of the S-400 missile defense system and the F-35 fighter jet program. As for NATO, the Turks’ main bone of contention was the alliance’s removal of Patriot missiles in 2015. As my Turkish friend told me: “What about common defense and Article 5? Isn’t that the raison d’etre of NATO? But they remove the defenses when we need them the most.” At the heart of NATO, Turkey has been having quarrels with France and Greece. With the Ukraine crisis, NATO needs to show unity more than ever. Will Turkey use it to repair relations with those two countries, or will it turn its back on the 70-year-old alliance and resume business as usual with Russia? Though Turkey is lying low, avoiding any blunt statements and trying to keep the balance between the West and Russia, the current situation offers Erdogan an excellent opportunity to mend his relations with the West. However, it is a zero-sum game; better relations with NATO, the EU and the US will mean worse relations with Russia. We still have to see how Erdogan will play his cards.

All of their evidence is old, Turkey is a strong NATO member

Sean Matthews, 1-28, 2022, Middle East Eye, Turkey was Nato’s wayward member, then came the crisis in Ukraine, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-nato-wayward-member-then-ukraine-crisis-happened

Nato has for years been plagued by tensions between Turkey and fellow member states, but with the looming threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ankara has recently found greater cohesion with its alliance partners. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday there “should be no doubt” about his country honouring “its commitments as a Nato ally”. Like other countries in the region, Turkey has been watching the crisis along its Black Sea neighbour’s borders carefully. Last week Erdogan tried to dissuade Russia from launching an invasion, stating: “Ukraine is not an ordinary country. Ukraine is a strong country.” He offered to moderate between Kiev and Moscow and plans to visit Ukraine on 3 Febuary. ‘You can see some elements of tension between countries in Europe [over Ukraine], but Turkey hasn’t been one of those actors’ – European Nato official “Turkey is showing itself to be a credible and important ally [during this crisis],” a European Nato official told Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity when discussing the sensitive topic. Critics have long argued that, under Erdogan, the country with the second-largest army in Nato was drifting away, perhaps irrevocably, from the alliance. Turkey was censured in the West for launching its own invasions into Syria. It clashed openly with Nato allies Greece and France in the Eastern Mediterranean, and has drawn criticism for a crackdown on dissent at home. The fallout was exacerbated by Erdogan’s overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system. That move triggered Turkey’s ejection from the US flagship F-35 fighter jet programme and the subsequent imposition of sanctions by Washington. “Sanctions are imposed on our country, a Nato member,” Erdogan bemoaned last year following the announcement. “What kind of an alliance is this?” Hardcore Nato business Beneath the simmering feuds, Ankara, in large part driven by its own security concerns, has emerged as a key backer of the pro-West government in Kiev. Erdogan has met his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, at least five times since 2019. Zelensky has met no other leader as frequently. Erdogan has also committed publicly to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and resisted Russian appeals to recognise the annexation of Crimea. “The Turks haven’t backed off on their unwavering support for Ukraine, even though it’s clear Russia hasn’t been happy with that,” Stephen Flanagan, a senior political scientist with Rand, told MEE. “If anything, they have been among those countries most supportive.” In 2019, to the fury of Russia, Turkey began selling armed drones to Ukraine. The country subsequently deployed them in a precision strike against Russian-backed separatists in October. Plans to build a factory to produce the Bayraktar TB2 drones in Ukraine are underway. As Russian troops, now estimated at around 120,000, continue to mount near Ukraine’s border, more Nato members have increased military assistance. Estonia is sending Javelin anti-tank missiles, and fellow Baltic countries Latvia and Lithuania are providing Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Russia is our enemy too, say Muslim fighters readying for war in Ukraine Read More » The Biden administration released an additional $200m in security assistance for Ukraine last week, and Washington’s military aid has been augmented by a UK airlift of more than 2,000 short-range anti-tank missiles to the country. James Jeffrey, a former US ambassador to Turkey currently with the Wilson Center think-tank in Washington DC, said the White House was working quietly with Turkey at both bilateral and Nato levels. “Both Washington and Nato recognise the key role Turkey has been playing in the Ukraine crisis but fear of a sudden Erdogan ‘flip’ limits public acknowledgement,” he said. So far the greatest challenge to Nato’s efforts to show a united front appear to be coming from the West, not the East. President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has sparred repeatedly with Erdogan, was set to hold a call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday. His remarks about Europe charting a separate policy on Russia have unsettled Nato members close to Ukraine. At the same time, Germany has been criticised for not staking out a clear position on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would transport Russian gas to Europe and bypass Ukraine. It has also broken with other Nato members by refusing to export lethal weapons to Kiev. “You can see some elements of tension between countries in Europe [over Ukraine], but Turkey hasn’t been one of those actors,” the Nato official said. “[While] it doesn’t shy away from publicly presenting differences it might have with alliance members, when it comes to the hardcore part of Nato business, Turkey has not been a stumbling block,” the official added. Russian lake Turkey and Russia are on opposing sides in conflicts in Syria and Libya, yet they have formed an uneasy partnership to manage their differences. “Turkey is in this balancing act between Russia and the West,” Rand’s Flanagan said. One area where Turkey has watched Russia with particular wariness is in the Black Sea, where Moscow has emerged as the dominant power following its annexation of Crimea. Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, stationed on the peninsula, has ballooned in recent years. It includes submarines and warships with Kalibr cruise missiles capable of hitting targets 2,400km (1,500 miles) away, and state-of-the-art intelligence-gathering ships. The militarisation of Crimea has had a deep impact on Ankara’s strategic thinking towards Nato. “Before 2014 Turkey would say ‘we don’t need Nato here. We can take care of it’,” Mamuka Tsereteli, a scholar with the Middle East Institute’s Frontier Europe Initiative, told MEE. “Now they are more willing to allow a greater Nato presence in the Black Sea than at any other time in decades,” he said. Ukraine conflict: Why it really matters to Turkey In 2016, Erdogan gave a speech in which he warned the Black Sea was becoming a “Russian lake” and cautioned, “if we do not take action, history will not forgive us”. Turkey has also positioned itself as a staunch advocate of both Ukraine and Georgia’s admission into Nato. It is also a participant in naval exercises with fellow Black Sea Nato countries including Romania and Bulgaria. Still, with the prospect of war rising in recent weeks, Erdogan has measured some of his rhetoric. In an interview on Wednsday he called for dialogue “that will listen to Russia and eliminate their reasonable security concerns”. The Turkish leader’s offer to serve as a mediator also suggests he is eager to tap into the relationship he has developed with Putin and perhaps strike a more neutral tone. “We work closely with the US within Nato,” a Turkish official told MEE. But the country’s ventures into overseas hotspots also mean it is constantly rubbing up against Russia, and treads carefully. “Turkey puts a premium on talking with Russia,” the Nato official said. There are limits to how far cohesion on Ukraine has gone, and stumbling blocks in Turkey’s relationship with the West persist. Despite its muscular support for Kiev, there is scant evidence Ankara is willing to back down on one of its most contentious moves: the S-400 purchase. “Turkey fulfills all of its obligations as a Nato member, but by the narrow confines of [the Nato treaty] it can do a lot in terms of its own defence and national policy,” the official said. “Turkey looks at its role differently.”

Ukraine invasion results in a supply chain crisis and a food crisis

Washigton Post, 1-27, 22, Wasshgton Post, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/an-invasion-of-ukraine-could-drive-up-global-food-prices-and-spark-unrest-far-from-the-front-lines/ar-AATdZZs, An invasion of Ukraine could drive up global food prices and spark unrest far from the front lines

More than 100,000 Russian troops are massed near Ukraine amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts to defuse the prospect of conflict. Should peace not prevail, western-gazing Ukrainians would pay the highest price. But in a worst-case scenario, the cost of a major Russian invasion of Ukraine — one of the world’s largest grain exporters — could ripple across the globe, driving up already surging food prices and increasing the risk of social unrest well beyond Eastern Europe. As tensions mount, one focus of economic concern is the global impact of extreme sanctions on Russia, a major exporter of agricultural goods, metals and fuel, particularly to Western Europe and China. Should the crisis escalate to the point of triggering staggering sanctions, the blow could spike prices and worsen global supply chain woes by tightening markets for commodities including natural gas and metals such as nickel, copper and platinum used in the manufacturing of everything from cars to spacecraft. Yet perhaps just as crucially, a major Russian incursion would also affect the flow of goods from Ukraine, the world’s fourth-largest supplier of wheat and corn. A major disruption of Ukrainian exports — especially in conjunction with any interruption in even larger Russian grain exports — could pile onto a global inflationary cycle that in many countries is already the worst in decades. Concern is especially focused on fuel and food. Last year, global food prices surged 28 percent to their highest level in a decade, according to the United Nations food agency. Worries of war have already driven corn futures to their highest levels since June and sent wheat futures to two-month highs before a recent easing. Over the past 20 years, bountiful Ukrainian harvests boosted the country’s role as a global breadbasket. Some of its biggest clients are economically battered, war-torn or otherwise fragile states in the Middle East and Africa, including Yemen, Lebanon and Libya, where grain shortages or cost surges could not only deepen misery but churn up unpredictable social consequences. Andrey Sizov, head of Russia-based consultancy SovEcon, told me this week that he still sees the risk of a Russian invasion as low. But should one happen, and exports are deeply disrupted, “that would mean big problems for all large food importers, especially in northern Africa, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan and Egypt.” He added, “The risk in all those countries of social unrest increases under this scenario.” Alex Smith, an agriculture analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, wrote in Foreign Policy that threats to Ukraine’s wheat exports pose the greatest risk to global food security. Its customers include China and the European Union, “but the developing world is where Ukrainian wheat has become an essential import,” he wrote. U.S. and Russia still far apart on Ukraine Smith noted that in 2020, half of all wheat consumed in Lebanon — a country critically dependent on bread as a staple and slammed by a crippling economic crisis — came from Ukraine. Yemen and Libya respectively import 22 percent and 43 percent of their total wheat consumption from Ukraine. In 2020, Ukraine also supplied more than 20 percent of wheat consumption in Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. For Egypt, a major Ukrainian buyer of wheat and a nation where rising food prices sparked massive street riots in 1977, sourcing challenges and price hikes would come just as the government is now seeking to roll back all-important bread subsidies. “Of the 14 countries that rely on Ukrainian imports for more than 10 percent of their wheat consumption, a significant number already face food insecurity from ongoing political instability or outright violence,” Smith wrote. It is worth noting that fears of similar disruptions also ran high during Russia’s covert, and later overt, aggression against Ukraine nearly a decade ago that resulted in the annexation of Crimea and the occupation by Russia-backed separatists of the eastern Donbas region. Fears then, Sizov told me, turned out to be overblown, with markets recovering rapidly. That was true in large part because of the limited nature of the Russian incursion. A full-on invasion, however, could be different, with the geography of Ukrainian agricultural production placing the disruption risk especially high. A large part of Ukraine’s wheat, Smith notes, is grown in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts, or regions located just beyond the parts of eastern Ukraine that are already largely under the control of Russian-backed separatists. That puts them in the early path of a Russian march to the west. Smith wrote that if an attack on Ukraine turns into “a Russian land grab,” then wheat production could plummet amid farmers fleeing and the destruction of infrastructure. He added, “Whoever controls the land will ultimately extract its riches, but if conditions in the Russian-controlled eastern parts of Ukraine are any guide, instability and paralysis may lie over the region and seriously impact production far beyond the initial invasion.” In 2020, Ukraine exported more than 8 million tons of corn to China, accounting for just over a quarter of Ukraine’s total corn exports that year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Given the agricultural cycle, a significant chunk of Ukraine’s seasonal corn exports — much of it purchased by China — has already shipped. But Peter Meyer, head of grains analysis at S&P Global Platts, told me there’s word on the street that the Chinese have been quietly shopping around for U.S. corn in the event the Ukrainians can’t make good on deliveries later this year. A short-term concern, Meyer said, is whether Russia would try to put a “stranglehold” on Ukraine’s economy by blockading Black Sea exports. Longer term, images of “Ukrainian housewives buying guns” and questions over whether farmers might abandoned their fields to “fight,” have also sowed doubts over Ukraine’s 2022 corn crop, which, Meyer said, “needs to be planted in the next few months.” The impact on global consumers could be far worse should the Russians seek to take steps — including higher export tariffs — to corral their own wheat production to ensure food security during any prospective war.

Turkey supports deterrence against Russia now

Turkey supporting NATO on the Ukraine

CNN, 1-27, 22, Turkish president to meet with Putin, offers to mediate talks between Ukraine and Russia, https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news-01-27-22/index.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Turkey for annual talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday. “President Putin gratefully accepted this invitation,” Peskov said. “They agreed that as soon as there is a resolution on a) the epidemiological situation and b) schedules, he will definitely take advantage of this invitation.” No date has been arranged yet, but Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told reporters Thursday he had been informed by the Kremlin it will be after Putin returns from the Beijing Olympic Games, which begin Feb. 4. Speaking in a TV interview broadcast live on Turkish news channel NTV Wednesday, Erdoğan invited Putin for a summit as part of Turkey’s High Level Strategic Cooperation Council Mechanisms, which it shares with both Russia and Ukraine. Erdoğan also offered to mediate talks between Russia and Ukraine as global efforts continue to de-escalate tensions. “We want the current tension between Russia and Ukraine to be resolved before it turns into a new crisis,” he told NTV. “I repeat that we are ready to give support as much as we can. I told this to Putin and [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky and I will keep telling them that. We want peace and stability in our region,” he said. “If they wish, we can bring the two leaders together in our country and pave the way for the re-establishment of the peace environment,” he added. Erdoğan warned that “war between two countries” will cause harm to the region and reaffirmed Turkey – a NATO member – will continue to support Ukraine’s territorial integrity. “It is our greatest wish that the efforts of NATO on this issue will be successful. Our country has supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty from the very beginning,” he said. “We had a clear stance against Russia when it targets Ukraine’s territorial integrity such as Crimea annexation. Our attitude is not going to change. I hope that Russia will not conduct an armed attack or occupation of Ukraine. This is not rational for Russia and [the] region,” Erdoğan continued.

Turkey’s NATO membership on desirable, no strong Russia ties

Benjamin Brimelow, 1-24, 2022, Business Insider, How NATO’s most troublesome member became frenemies with Russia, and why it might not last, https://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-growing-ties-with-russia-have-caused-problem-for-nato-2022-1

Turkey’s improving ties with Russia has been a headache for NATO amid the alliance’s tensions with Moscow. Relations between Ankara and Moscow have warmed because of changing regional dynamics, including mutual frustrations with Europe. But there are still fault lines in their relationship, and the embrace could quickly become a confrontation. Of the 30 countries in NATO, none have caused the alliance more recent headaches than Turkey. Turkey has NATO’s second-largest standing army and is centrally located in a strategically significant region, which makes it an indispensable ally. Turkey has also shown a willingness to confront Russia, a longstanding rival, and continues to support NATO interests and missions in the region and around the world. But Ankara’s warming relationship with Moscow has complicated things for the alliance. The current state of relations between Turkey and Russia is the product of changing dynamics and shifting priorities after the Cold War and of changes to the balance of power in the region over the last decade. Their relationship is unlikely to bloom into an alliance of its own, but their apparent closeness and its effect on NATO’s interests has vexed policymakers and analysts alike. Historically, Russo-Turkish relations have been troubled, as evidenced by the fact that they fought over a dozen wars between the 16th and 20th centuries. There was some limited cooperation early in the 20th century, but after post-World War II disputes led to Turkey’s accession to NATO in 1952 (alongside Greece) Ankara and Moscow were firmly on opposing sides on most issues — Turkey even agreed to host US nuclear weapons, dozens of which are still based there. As the Cold War ended, however, their relationship thawed. In 1987, Turkey began importing Soviet gas, and Russia eventually became Turkey’s primary energy supplier. Russo-Turkish economic ties also grew after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russia, less of a military threat than the USSR, became Turkey’s second-largest trading partner (after the EU) in 2008. In 2010 they signed a visa-free travel agreement. The relationship between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin has facilitated closer cooperation. Those ties have only gotten closer as Erdoğan has become more autocratic, especially after a failed coup in 2016. A ‘balancing act’ Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at NATO Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s advanced S-400 air-defense missile system, its invasion of northern Syria and operations against Kurds there, and Erdoğan’s continued suppression of dissent have prompted many Western countries to apply sanctions and reduce their cooperation with Ankara. That Western backlash, combined with Turkish resentment over perceived double standards, tensions with European countries over issues like Cyprus and migration, and Turkey’s stalled bid to join the EU, has led Turkey look toward Russia even more. Consequently, Turkey has shifted away from being a largely reliable partner for Western countries and now carefully balances between the West and Russia. But Turkey is by no means totally comfortable with Russia’s recent actions and ambitions. Moscow’s ongoing military modernization, its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and intervention in Syria in 2015, and its growing influence in the Black Sea and the Caucasus have all increased Turkish anxiety about its larger neighbor. “Turkey is trying to continue this balancing act that is driven by the fact that they fundamentally do not trust the Russians, but they are also unsure about Western support,” Stephen Flanagan, a senior political scientist at the RAND corporation, told Insider. Clashes and confrontations Russia Turkey troops soldiers patrol in Syria That lack of trust is underlined by multiple deadly clashes between the Turkish and Russian militaries, particularly in Syria, where the fundamental differences between Ankara’s and Moscow’s ambitions are on display. US officials have said that they believe “dozens” of Turkish soldiers have been killed by Russian military operations in Syria. Turkey has also shot down a Russian jet there and launched operations directly against Moscow’s Syrian allies. Turkey has also clashed with Russia’s proxies in Libya. Turkey has provided military support to nearby countries that have clashed with Russia or Russia’s allies, including helping build up the navies of Russia’s Caspian Sea neighbors. Ankara has also built a close relationship with Ukraine since 2014, selling Ukraine armed drones that Kyiv has already used on the frontlines and helping rebuild the Ukrainian navy. Ankara has even openly advocated full NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, which many alliance members have resisted or argued against. While Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 is a sign of closer cooperation, its ongoing military modernization efforts are largely a response to Russia’s own increased military capabilities. Ankara has also never sworn off its Western military partnerships. Although the US kicked it out of the F-35 program over the S-400, Turkey recently asked the US to sell it 40 new F-16s and 80 modernization kits for its current fleet. The Russo-Turkish relationship “is on a knife’s edge on any given day,” Flanagan said. “Turkey is still very much anxious to protect its own interests in the broader region and still very worried of the Russians.” Risks in the future Russia Turkey troops patrol in Syria Despite its concerns, Turkey continues to have extensive engagement with Russia. Russia is building several nuclear reactors for Turkey, and Erdogan has refused to rule out purchasing more Russian military equipment. That ongoing cooperation is in part a reflection of Ankara’s acceptance of geopolitical reality. “The Turks, at some level, have no choice but to have a somewhat cooperative relationship with Russia given that Russia controls the endgame in Syria” and has increased its strength in the Black Sea, Flanagan said. While Turkey supports an increased NATO presence in the Black Sea to counter Russia, it also does not want to provoke a crisis. Ankara “would like to lead efforts to support whatever NATO is doing to deter further Russian aggression in the Black Sea region, but they don’t want to over-militarize the region,” Flanagan said. “What they don’t want is overly zealous US deployments that provoke a crisis that then leads to the [Turkish] Straits being somehow closed or see major fighting along its territorial waters.” Russia and Turkey’s relations seem destined to hover between rivalry and partnership, but their competing interests in the Black Sea, the Middle East, and North Africa give that relationship the potential to become confrontational quickly. “It remains kind of volatile,” Flanagan said. “Either side could miscalculate.”

Turkey no longer has a security relationship with Russia, working as a NATO member

Giorgio Cafiero, 1-22, 2022, Turkey’s perspective on the crisis in Ukraine, https://english.alaraby.co.uk/analysis/turkeys-perspective-crisis-ukraine

The situation in Ukraine has led to global fears about the possibility of a large-scale military conflict on the European continent. Turkey, which has strongly backed Kyiv, has high stakes in the outcome of Ukraine’s crisis. As a NATO member that shares the Black Sea with Ukraine, Turkey is backing Kyiv in various ways that are significant. Yet Turkish support for Ukraine comes with logical limits. Considering efforts by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to continue cooperating with Russia in numerous areas while avoiding a major confrontation with Moscow, Ankara will only go so far in terms of putting itself at risk vis-à-vis the standoff in Ukraine. Mindful of Turkey’s current economic problems, Ankara is particularly determined to avoid sliding into a conflict with Russia. This is not to say, however, that Turkey won’t want to continue supporting Ukraine in ways aimed at strengthening the eastern European country’s position against Moscow. Despite major growth in Turkish-Russian cooperation in energy, tourism, and other sectors in recent years, Ankara finds itself unsettled by much about Russia’s foreign policy. From Russia’s support to the Syrian government and Libya’s General Khalifa Haftar to Moscow’s actions vis-à-vis Ukraine, the Kremlin has spent years advancing agendas that conflict with Ankara’s interests. “Since 2014, Turkey’s leadership has strongly opposed Russia’s annexation of Crimea and voiced support for the Ukrainian state’s territorial integrity, social cohesion, and national sovereignty” “Russia is increasingly acting as a revisionist and resurgent power in Europe and elsewhere, which disturbs Turkey,” said Serhat S. Çubukçuoğlu, a senior researcher in geopolitics and a doctoral candidate in International Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS in Washington, DC, in an interview with The New Arab. “Turkey and Russia have developed close ties after the 2016 failed coup attempt, but Russia is acting more aggressively in the region and that creates anxiety in Ankara.” Turkey’s interests in Ukraine Since 2014, Turkey’s leadership has strongly opposed Russia’s annexation of Crimea and voiced support for the Ukrainian state’s territorial integrity, social cohesion, and national sovereignty. Ankara’s interests in standing by Ukraine and condemning Russia’s actions in relation to Crimea and Donbas stem from geopolitical and security concerns, plus many cultural and historic factors too. Aside from strong diplomatic, rhetorical, and moral support, Turkish support for Ukraine has been most significant in the sphere of defence. In the Ukrainian military’s armed conflict with separatists in Donbas, the Bayraktar TB2 drones which Ankara has sold Kyiv have been making a difference. The Turks have also built corvettes for the Ukrainian Navy’s Black Sea fleet and there has been engine technology cooperation. Turkey worries about Russia’s actions in relation to Ukraine for various reasons that have motivated Ankara to provide Kyiv with such support. A primary concern for the Turks, which other NATO members share, “was based on the assumption that [Russia’s actions vis-à-vis Crimea and Donbas] would create a new balance of power in the region and beyond, by disrupting the international order which was created after the Cold War,” Dr Valeria Giannotta, a Turkey-based Italian academic and expert, told TNA. “Those occupied lands are of great importance for Turkey both from a historical and symbolic point of view,” she explained. “The legacy of the Crimean War and the strong link with the Crimean Tatar community plays a discriminant role in Ankara’s support to Ukraine to the extent that Turkey has been warming [up to] the [idea of] Ukrainian membership in NATO. Hence, many cooperation defence agreements, along several bilateral visits, regular diplomatic contacts, and other contracts have been signed between Ankara and Kyiv.” By the same token, Turkey’s defence partnership with Ukraine unsettles Moscow. “Altogether Turkey and Ukraine have a developing defence partnership that adds to the anxiety in Moscow [with] the NATO alliance getting closer to Russia’s soft underbelly and prompting [Russia to seek] ways to counter that perceived threat from the south and the west,” Çubukçuoğlu told TNA. Last year, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Ankara’s support for Kyiv’s ambitions of retaking control of Crimea constitutes an “encroachment on Russia’s territorial integrity” which has been “feeding Kyiv’s militaristic sentiment”. Turkey’s perspective on the crisis in Ukraine Turkey’s defence partnership with Ukraine unsettles Moscow. [Getty] Balancing the West and the East It is simply not possible to examine Ankara’s position in relation to the Ukrainian crisis without seeing Turkey as a NATO member. “Turkish actions regarding concrete support to Ukraine should be expected in accordance and in coordination with NATO,” explained Dr Murat Aslan, a researcher at the SETA Foundation and a faculty member at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, in an interview with TNA. “It must be more than a single country. It should cover an overall alliance just to stop Russian advances…towards Europe.” Within this context, the Ukrainian crisis has helped Turkey improve relations with the US and other NATO allies. Considering several issues that have caused tension between Ankara and its traditional allies – including the S-400 missile defence spat, Western governments’ sponsorship of the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, Turkey’s domestic affairs, etc. – Turkey benefits from the fact that the situation in Ukraine is showing how useful Ankara is as an ally of the US and other member-countries in the alliance. The EastMed Pipeline project is a case in point. Although Washington was never involved in this pipeline connecting Israel, Cyprus, and Greece, the Trump administration backed it. Now the Biden administration has told Tel Aviv and Athens that Washington ceases to support this multibillion-dollar project, which was meant to counter Ankara’s position in the eastern Mediterranean while making Europe less dependent on Russian gas. “Turkey and Russia have developed close ties after the 2016 failed coup attempt, but Russia is acting more aggressively in the region and that creates anxiety in Ankara” Various analysts largely attribute this decision on the Biden administration’s part to the White House’s desire to improve ties with Turkey because of the tense situation in Ukraine. But there are many real limits to how closely Turkey wants to align with its NATO allies against Russia. “Turkey is treading a fine line of balance between NATO and Moscow,” Çubukçuoğlu told TNA. Experts seem to agree that Turkey will probably continue selling more armed UAVs to Kyiv. But Turkish support will stop short of any level that could subject Ankara to serious risks of a direct conflict with Russia. “Erdogan cannot afford another fallout with Putin,” explained Çubukçuoğlu. “Thinking of examples in the past – from the downing of the Russian Su-24M in 2015 to the airstrike in Idlib, Syria that killed 34 Turkish soldiers in 2020 – Ankara can’t afford another crisis like that. Turkey’s interests lay in a stable, secure, and cooperative environment in the Black Sea. But it doesn’t have power to alter the facts on the ground,” he said. “Expected gains from a military intervention on behalf of Kyiv are minuscule compared to the collateral damage that Russia would inflict on Turkey if hostilities break out into an armed conflict. Anyhow, Turkey is not obliged under binding treaty articles to assist Ukraine in any [Russian invasion] – neither is NATO.” Trade is also an important factor. Bilateral trade between Turkey and Russia sits around $30 billion with the balance very much in the latter’s favour. As the Turks grapple with very serious economic problems, there is a huge interest in keeping Russian tourists coming to their country each year and keeping the flow of Russian gas into Turkey. Indeed, any interruption to the energy relationship between these two countries could make Turkey suffer severely. “Turkey would be on the receiving end of damages in the event of a major fallout with Russia,” emphasised Çubukçuoğlu. “Almost a third of Turkish gas imports are sourced from Russia, and of course there’s the potential use of energy as a weapon as we saw in Europe as a risk premium on Turkey’s economic outlook. Turkey’s going through dire straits in terms of its economy.” At the end of the day, Turkey will approach the crisis in Ukraine in a way that is highly pragmatic. Ankara’s strategies for standing against Moscow in relation to Ukraine will be cautious and mindful of the various ways in which Russia has leverage over Turkey. When it comes to Crimea, Donbas, and other sensitive international files concerning Moscow, Erdogan’s government will probably continue playing eastern and western powers off each other to Ankara’s own advantage. Ukraine has unquestionably complicated this strategy, which aims to assert Turkey as an increasingly independent country that can rely on the NATO alliance to push back against Russia’s foreign policy agenda while also preventing Ankara from becoming too dependent on North American and European powers. “Erdogan cannot afford another fallout with Putin” Can Turkey be key to a diplomatic breakthrough? An optimistic view of Turkey’s foreign policy suggests that Ankara’s unique position vis-à-vis Kyiv and Moscow could enable Turkey to help deescalate the Ukrainian crisis. Although Russia has previously rejected the idea of permitting Turkey to mediate in the conflict because of its NATO membership, this month Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke to the media about Ankara’s proposals for cooling the tensions in Ukraine. Peskov said, “If our Turkish partners are able to influence Kyiv and the implementation of the earlier reached agreements, this could only be welcomed.” The Turkish head of state recently stated that he has plans to go to Ukraine next month and hopefully bring Russia and Ukraine’s leaders together for talks. “A psychology of war in the region upsets us, as a country that has ties with both sides,” explained President Erdogan at a press conference in Ankara. “Our wish is to bring Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskiy together as soon as possible.” It would behove both NATO and Russia to welcome Ankara’s efforts to move the sides toward reaching a middle ground that averts further escalation. Yet time will tell whether Turkey’s diplomatic energy can help bring about this outcome, which would be desirable for the whole world.

Turkey will turn to Russia without NATO

Jared Malsin, 1-22, 2022, WSJ, F-16 Sale Could Mend U.S., Turkey Ties, but Tension With Russia Intrudes, https://www.wsj.com/articles/f-16-sale-could-mend-u-s-turkey-ties-but-tension-with-russia-intrudes-11642847406?mod=hp_lead_pos3

The Biden administration is weighing a Turkish proposal to buy a fleet of F-16 jet fighters that officials in Ankara say would mend ruptured security links between the countries, but the sale faces opposition from members of Congress critical of Turkey’s growing ties to Russia. Senior Turkish officials say the deal could be a lifeline for their relationship with the U.S., which has suffered for years over Turkey’s purchases of Russian arms, clashing interests in the war in Syria and U.S. criticism of Ankara’s human-rights record. And in both countries, analysts say blocking the sale could push Ankara closer to Russia. The prospect of F-16 sales to Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, comes as Russia is testing the alliance’s resolve on the Ukrainian border, where Moscow has deployed tens of thousands of troops and prompted fears of an invasion. The deal has its origin in 1999, when Turkey joined the American-led international consortium building the F-35 advanced jet fighter. In 2017, Ankara decided to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system over objections from the U.S., which feared it could hack into the F-35s. In response, two years later the U.S. expelled Turkey from the F-35 program. With the F-35 out of reach, the new F-16s would replace aging F-16s and F-4 jets in Turkey’s fleet. But the proposed sale faces resistance from lawmakers who take a dim view of the S-400 purchase, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Turkish policies in the eastern Mediterranean, U.S. officials and congressional aides said. The Biden administration hasn’t signaled whether it will back the F-16 deal. U.S. arms export control laws require the administration to notify Congress of proposed foreign military sales, giving lawmakers a chance to review and oppose or try to block a deal. The administration hasn’t formally notified Congress about the proposed F-16 sale. “It would hit speed bumps,” a congressional aide said. “The question is would those speed bumps break it apart, or would it be able to make it over them?” The proposed deal illustrates the complex national-security issues in the U.S. relationship with Turkey, a NATO ally and regional power that hosts thousands of American soldiers. The decades-old security relationship between Ankara and Washington has become strained in recent years as Mr. Erdogan has formed closer ties with Russia. Turkey has also attacked U.S.-backed Kurdish militias in Syria. Meanwhile, Mr. Erdogan said in November that Turkey was ready to mediate between Ukraine and Russia. The U.S. is negotiating with Turkish officials over the sale, according to Turkish officials. A chief adviser to Mr. Erdogan, Ibrahim Kalin, inquired about the deal during a call on Jan. 10 with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, according to a person familiar with the discussion. A National Security Council spokesman declined to comment. “The United States and Turkey have longstanding and deep bilateral defense ties, and Turkey’s continued NATO interoperability remains a priority,” a State Department spokesman said. Several NATO member states fly F-16s, including Turkey. Current and former Turkish officials said the F-16 deal, if approved, would arrest the NATO ally’s drift toward Russia. Beyond the S-400 deal, Mr. Erdogan last fall said he had discussed with Russia ramping up defense cooperation, including on fighter planes and jet engines. “Turkey is an important player in the game and it has to be kept in the Western fold,” said Ilnur Cevik, a chief foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Erdogan. The S-400 purchase drove a rift between the two countries that has resisted repair. Mr. Cevik said the country hasn’t yet deployed the missile batteries, though Mr. Erdogan has said he wants to buy more. Russian S-400 air defense systems in Moscow last May. PHOTO: MAXIM SHIPENKOV/SHUTTERSTOCK “[The F-16 sale] is a brilliant way out,” said James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey who is now with the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. “The problem is there’s such a negative attitude about Turkey, particularly in the U.S. Congress, that I’m afraid people are going to stumble over it.” The deal faces significant skepticism among key senators who object to Turkey’s purchase of the Russian missile system, according to congressional aides. The leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sens. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) and James Risch (R., Idaho), have yet to take public positions on the deal. In the House, a group of members from both parties, including members of the pro-Greek Hellenic Caucus, objected to the deal in letters to Secretary of State Antony Blinken last year, citing Ankara’s Russian arms purchases and Turkey’s dispute with Greece over maritime borders in the Mediterranean. “Our concern is, if we’re giving them military equipment, if they are going to be continuing to act in this aggressive manner towards Cyprus, toward the Greek islands,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R., N.Y.). “We’re concerned about our intellectual property being shared with Russia. [Turkey] is acting in many ways like an adversary.” SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS Should Congress support the sale of F-16 jet fighters to Turkey? Why or why not? Join the conversation below. Current and former Turkish officials say sinking the F-16 deal would punish Turkey’s defense establishment, which remains broadly aligned with the U.S. and opposed to Russia despite Mr. Erdogan’s relationship with Mr. Putin. “They do need these aircraft,” said Charles Forrester, a lead analyst for Janes, a defense industry publication. “The challenge for them, though, is that the S-400 situation hasn’t really been resolved in a public way.” If Turkey can’t buy the U.S. jets, it could go shopping in Moscow, which offers its Su-35 fighter and Su-57 stealth fighter, as well as the Checkmate, Russia’s proposed fifth-generation, single-engine stealth fighter, analysts said. British sanctions over Turkey’s incursion into Syria would hinder Ankara’s purchase of the Eurofighter Typhoon, and France is unlikely to approve a sale of its Dassault Rafale fighters, in part because it sold planes to Turkey’s rival Greece last year, said Mr. Forrester. Senior Turkish officials have said Ankara wouldn’t join the Russian camp, but analysts say the possible collapse of the F-16 deal could drive Erdogan closer to Moscow. “They may go to the Russians,” Mr. Jeffrey, the former ambassador, said. “And then you’ll have a descending spiral of accusations and bad feelings, and it will just reinforce going in the wrong direction. That’s why the F-16 is so important.”

Turkey will negotiate an end to the Ukraine crisis

Daily Sabah, 1-21, 22, , Turkey wants peace to prevail in region: Erdoğan on Ukraine crisis, https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/turkey-wants-peace-to-prevail-in-region-erdogan-on-ukraine-crisis

Turkey aims for peace to prevail and hopes no other adverse developments will take place in the region, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said as Turkey has intensified its diplomatic efforts for a mediator role to de-escalate tensions between Russia and Ukraine while the international community is worried about a large-scale war. “A psychology of war in the region upsets us, as a country that has ties with both sides. Our hope is to bring together Mr. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy as soon as possible and to ensure that they have a face-to-face meeting,” Erdoğan said Thursday after a joint news conference with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Turkish capital Ankara, in which they signed six agreements as both countries pledged to enhance their ties in several fields. Erdoğan underlined that he places great importance on both his visit to Ukraine and Putin’s visit to Turkey. “I will visit Ukraine at the beginning of next month,” he noted. Also addressing reporters on Friday, Erdoğan reiterated that Turkey can be the broker to establish peace between Ukraine and Russia. “Any development towards the occupation or the outbreak of a war constitutes a very serious violation for the peace of the region. As Turkey, we do not accept the emergence of unrest here,” he said. “We want peace to prevail in the region, and for this, we are ready to do whatever comes our way,” he said and added that may talk with Putin on phone or visit him in Moscow in addition to his planned Ukraine visit. Underlining that Russia invading Ukraine is not a realistic scenario, Erdoğan warned Tuesday that the region could not endure another war. Turkey is ready to play a role in de-escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine, Presidential Spokesperson Ibrahim Kalın also said Tuesday, announcing Erdoğan will be traveling to Kyiv to hold talks with Zelenskyy in a couple of weeks. Russia will only welcome efforts if Turkish partners can encourage Ukraine to implement the Minsk Protocol, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday in their initial response. Meanwhile, both Russia and Ukraine are open to the idea of Turkey playing a role in easing tensions between the two countries, as proposed by Ankara in November, Turkish diplomatic sources said Thursday. Turkey is discussing the possibility of hosting the next meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group, during which Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region will be discussed, the sources told reporters on condition of anonymity. No date has been set for an Istanbul meeting but representatives from Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE Minsk Group and Donbass are expected to attend, they said, adding the group would meet “frequently.” According to the Kremlin, however, Peskov told RIA news agency that there have been no preparations for such a meeting. “There is nothing on this meeting,” he was quoted as saying, adding that Ukraine has not abided by the Minsk accords on the settlement of the conflict with pro-Moscow rebels, while weapons are supplied to Ukraine. Western countries say they fear Russia is planning a new offensive against Ukraine after it massed tens of thousands of troops near the border in recent months. Moscow denies planning an attack. One source said that both Russia and Ukraine responded positively to Turkey’s offer to mediate. NATO member Turkey has friendly ties with both Kyiv and Moscow but opposes Russian policies in Syria and Libya, as well as its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Ukraine has welcomed Turkey’s involvement in negotiations with Russia. Zelenskyy said in November he had asked Erdoğan to pass on a list of prisoners to Putin for a potential prisoner swap, though the swap never took place. Kyiv has also bought Turkish drones to possibly use against Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine, angering Moscow, and agreed with Ankara to manufacture the drones locally this year. Ankara said that it was ready to be a mediator in the crisis two months ago, an offer Moscow dismissed at the time. It has also said sanctions on Russia are not a solution, though the European Union threatened “massive” sanctions on Thursday if there is an attack. Speaking about Turkey’s proposals, Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, “If our Turkish partners can influence Kyiv and the implementation of the earlier reached agreements, this could only be welcomed.”

Turkey’s role as a NATO ally is on-balance desirable

Soicescu & Hanso, January 2022, Turkey’s Future Role in NATO: An Indispensable and Difficult Ally, https://icds.ee/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ICDS_Policy_Paper_Turkey%C2%B4s_Future_Role_in_NATO_Stoicescu_Hanso_January_2022-1.pdf, Kalev Stoicescu Kalev Stoicescu is a Research Fellow at ICDS. A former Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defence official, he joined the ICDS in August 2014. Among other fields, he specialises in issues related to Russian foreign and domestic policy, as well as developments in the field of NATO’s defence and security. Stoicescu served at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1991–2000, including as Ambassador to the OSCE and Ambassador to US and Canada. He was a member of the Estonian delegation in border negotiations with Russia and Latvia. He worked for the Ministry of Defence from 2002–2014, first as civilian-military cooperation department head and then, from 2007, as counsellor on defence policy at the Estonian Embassy in Paris. Hille Hanso Hille Hanso is an independent researcher and analyst, based in Istanbul. Her articles, interviews, essays and commentaries have appeared in all media outlets in Estonia and abroad. Her expertise and research interests include Turkish culture and language, nationalism, security and defence in the regional context, Turkish domestic and foreign policy; Estonia-Turkey relations in the 1920s and 30s, minorities and forced migration in the Middle East. Her latest graduate degree is in International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies from Istanbul Bilgi University. TThe Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia recognised Hille Hanso for her contribution to developing Estonian-Turkish relations in 2020

Executive Summary

Turkey is one of the key Allies in NATO. Turkey’s relations with and attitude towards the West will have a significant impact on the future of the Alliance and its capabilities and influence in the Black Sea region, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Turkey’s regional power ambitions and interventionist policy, departure from democracy, unsettled disputes with NATO Allies and rapprochement with Russia and China create a very complex picture. The authors present the following recommendations from the perspective of reviving Turkey’s Western orientation, as much as possible, and strengthening NATO:

The West – meaning NATO Allies and the EU institutions and non-NATO member states – should adopt a double-track approach to Turkey by strengthening relations both personally, given Turkey’s present governance and President Erdoğan’s role/style, and institutionally, contemplating a longterm perspective.
The relations between the West and Turkey do not need more irritants (disputes and conflicts of interest), but rather a problem-solving agenda, a positive atmosphere, and constructive contacts and communication.
The above is easier said than done, but the main interests of, and critical issues that concern Western countries, NATO and the EU, and Turkey have been on the table for years, and should be solved one by one. None of these issues, from the refugees and Turkey’s membership in the EU, to the Patriot versus S-400 systems, are unsolvable, or can be shelved indefinitely. All sides have made mistakes, but through good will reasonable compromises can be achieved for the common benefit. Western-Turkish relations need a success story/ a good news story soon.
Western criticism of Turkey’s current democracy deficiencies is legitimate, but it should not block the path to improving mutual relations. Turkey is a NATO ally, not an adversary of the Alliance. There is no reason to treat Turkey like Russia and differently, for example, from Poland or Hungary.
Time cannot be turned back and the Turkish economic and democratisation “miracle” of the 2000s cannot be repeated in the same fashion under the current government, but the West has a duty and a vested interest in preventing Turkey from unbalancing its policies and strategic choices in favour of Russia (and China).
Turkey’s membership of the EU – that is full membership – depends on achieving consensus between member states. Turkey should be given clear answers regarding the accession negotiations that should be unfrozen in exchange for Ankara’s pledge and tangible steps made towards improving its democracy record.
The customs union agreement between the EU and Turkey could be complemented with clauses that allow Turkish exports of agricultural products to the EU, as a bonus for making steps that improve the state of democracy and freedoms before the elections in 2023.
The EU should negotiate with Turkey a reasonable/acceptable way for visa liberalisation for Turkish citizens.
A renewed peace process, aimed at resolving issues related to Kurdish organisations vis-à-vis fighting terrorism in Syria and elsewhere, could help pave the way to lasting security in Turkey and the region. The West could provide economic incentives to bring all counterparts, including relevant actors in the Kurdish political movements, to the negotiation table. Respect for human rights, territorial integrity and sovereignty of states, and of security arrangements are crucial ingredients of a peace process.

Russia will cooperate with Turkey on security issues if NATO does not

The US has declined Turkey’s repeated request for a technology transfer for the purchase of Patriot air defence surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems. In December 2018, the US State Department ultimately cleared the purchase by Turkey of a package of Patriot systems (for about USD 3.5 billion), but the technology transfer issue remains unsettled.18 Russia would surely be seeking to profit from Turkey’s inability to purchase the newest generation multirole aircraft and mid-range air defence systems, as well as to acquire technology from and participate in joint armaments programs with other NATO Allies. Moscow stands ready to sell to Turkey whatever it needs (for example, a second batch of S-400 systems) and to develop bilateral 16 Melike Günaydın, “An overview of the Turkish Defence and Aerospace Industry 2020 Performance Report,” Defence Turk, 1 July 2021. 17 Arda Mevlutoğlu, “Turkey’s exclusion from the F-35 Project,” The Topchubashov Center, 28 April 2021. 18 Aaron Mehta, “Turkey cleared by US for $3.5 billion Patriot missile deal, despite S-400 row,” Defense News, 19 December 2018. cooperation in the defence and aerospace industry sector.

Turkey committed to NATO

Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy debate has been unsettled since the coup in 2016. Nevertheless, its commitment to NATO, including the development of a new Strategic Concept of the Alliance, remains strong. Interviewees agreed on this point, referring to the communiqué of the Brussels summit, in June 2021, to which Turkey fully subscribed. On the other hand, Turkey’s so-called Eurasianists, as well as many Islamists, pose questions as to whether the country should stay in or leave NATO. These doubts are on the margins of Turkey’s political landscape, but they do affect the domestic public debate and the results of opinion polls.

Turkey supports NATO enlargement and the NATO’s role in Afghanistan

Turkey’s views on NATO’s enlargement are officially in contradiction with Russia’s position. Ankara supports the bids for NATO membership for both Ukraine and Georgia. Turkey also wants NATO to help more in Libya and display stronger commitment, upholding the country’s legitimate/ internationally recognised government in Tripoli, although NATO probably will not make any decisions to that end in the near future. In Afghanistan, Turkey played a major role in NATO’s efforts. It was the only Ally present and one of the six countries invited (together with Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and Qatar) to the inauguration of the Taliban-ruled government in Kabul, in a way representing both itself and the recently departed Alliance. Turkey was prepared to keep the Kabul Airport under control after the withdrawal of NATO troops, but there is no agreement with the new Taliban regime.

Turkey provides significant support to the European Response Force

In 2021, Turkey took over from Germany the land component of the NATO Response Force (NRF), providing a Rapid Deployable Corps.21 In addition, France contributes the French AeroNaval Rapid Reaction Force (FRAMARFOR) to the NRF’s maritime component. The ACC Ramstein (Article 5 and Collective Defence) and Italy’s JFAC (crisis response) make up the air component, and Command and Control (C2) and Special Forces from Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands contribute to the special operations components. Turkey contributes also routinely to NATO’s maritime groups and operations in the Mediterranean (Standing NATO Maritime Group 1, Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1 and Operation Sea Guardian).

Lack of democracy needs to be balanced with other needs

The United States should certainly speak up and openly criticise Erdoğan’s deepening autocracy, but in the meantime, it should also face reality. For all his faults, Erdoğan nevertheless leads an important country. He is, for now, the only person that the US can attempt to do business with and work with to solve major problems between the two countries.28 Yet, the US should keep pushing for constructive relations in Turkey at the institutional level, such as ministries and parliament, to avoid accelerating the concentration of power to a very narrow group of people in Turkey. 26 Andrew Wilks, “Turkey’s Erdoğan lifts threat to expel Western ambassadors,” AP News, 25 October 2021. 27 Jeff Mason, “Biden to warn Turkey’s Erdoğan against ‘precipitous’ actions,” Reuters, 31 October 2021. 28 Michael E. O’Hanlon and Ömer Taşpınar, “Repairing the rift with Turkey,” Brooking Institution, 18 November 2020. Turkey can be a critical player in helping the US to handle Russia, Iran and many issues in the Middle East and the Mediterranean

US military assets in both Turkey and Greece means there can’t be a conflict between the two

The US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called Greece a “pillar of stability the region”, as Athens and Washington agreed to the US gaining greater access to Greek military bases in October 2021.36 The agreement is indefinite and allows US forces to train and operate more broadly in Greece. This means the US has significant military assets deployed in both Turkey and Greece that surely would play a key role in preventing conflict between the two Allies and historic rivals. This agreement may signal to Ankara that it is time to solve disputes with Greece for the sake of strengthening the Alliance, and that solutions could be found by negotiations and/or international mechanisms/ bodies (for example, the International Court of Justice, in the case of the maritime EEZ) rather than unilateral actions.

Turkey would ally with Russia if it wasn’t in NATO

Standing by ready to fill every gap (by providing political support and economic advantages, but also by selling military equipment), Russia will use, in its own interest, every dispute between Turkey and the West. Moscow would enjoy Ankara’s continuous conflicts with and alienation from NATO Allies and the EU. The bottom line, particularly from NATO’s perspective, would be Turkey’s further rapprochement with Russia (and China) in the defence/military field. However, one should not disregard the fact that Turkey would be willing, for example, to be reinstated (most probably not unconditionally by the US) in the F-35 project and to purchase Patriot systems (and F-16 jets) from the US. The bridges have not yet been burned.

Turkey lifted its veto of the Baltic States defense plan

A new defence plan for Poland and the Baltic states was approved by NATO, in June 2020, only after Turkey lifted its veto.37 An interviewee claimed that Turkey did not intend to take the four countries hostage, but instead sought to achieve consensus in the Alliance on labelling the Syrian Kurdish YPG a terrorist organisation. Diplomatic/political bargaining between Allies at NATO’s HQ rarely spills out to the public, even in the most contentious cases, but the defence plan issue did come out and rang bells particularly in the Baltics states and Poland. The issue soon disappeared from the media, but left behind some important lessons. Turkey’s behaviour is not excusable, but the Allies need to define/agree on common threats, as clearly as possible, and strengthen solidarity, to avoid hampering NATO’s core task of collective defence.

Turkey supporting Baltic state security

The rise of Polish and Baltic interest in Turkey, and also in the opposite direction, became evident after Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 37 “Turkey drops objections to NATO defence plan for Poland and the Baltics,” NATO Watch, 3 July 2020. and Andrzej Duda signed an agreement for the purchase by Poland of Bayraktar TB2 drones at the presidential complex in Ankara, in May 2021.38 The agreement signed by the Turkish and Polish ministers of defence and worth USD 270 million, made Poland the first NATO member state to purchase a batch of 24 Bayraktar UAVs, with the first drones due to be delivered in 2022.39 For now, it is hard to say whether this is a new trend or an isolated arms deal. Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Qatar and Libya have purchased similar models of the Bayraktar TB2 drones with a range of 150 kilometres and readiness to be armed with anti-tank missiles. Latvia’s defence minister Artis Pabriks and Lithuania’s foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis visited Turkey in June and July 2021, respectively. Turkey is interested in selling variants of the Bayraktar TB2 to these Allies, as well. It is possible that Latvia and Lithuania, in addition to Poland and Ukraine, could purchase and start to operate the combat proven and capable Turkish drones, a development that would certainly enhance deterrence and defence in the region. In early July 2021, Turkey deployed four F-16s and an 80-strong detachment from its 6th Main Jet Base at Bandırma to the Malbork Air Base in Poland, to support the enhanced Baltic Air Policing (BAP) Mission40. This was the second contribution by Turkey to upholding NATO’s north-eastern flank, after a single rotation in the BAP from April to July 2006 (in Šiauliai, Lithuania). The deployment of Turkey’s F-16s to Poland demonstrated the power of political dialogue, and also of defence procurements between Allies. Interestingly, three Allies from the south – Spain, Italy and Turkey – contributed together to the BAP mission in Lithuania, Estonia and Poland, an excellent example of Allied solidarity. However, Turkey has not yet contributed troops to NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence. Last but not least, Poland and the Baltic states have expressed support for continuing accession negotiations between Turkey and the European Union.

The West should continue to work with Turkey

The authors propose, on the basis of these conclusions, the following recommendations:

The West – meaning NATO Allies and the EU institutions and non-NATO member states– should adopt a double-track approach to Turkey by strengthening relations both personally, given Turkey’s present governance and President Erdoğan’s role/ style, and institutionally, contemplating a long-term perspective.
The relations between the West and Turkey do not need more irritants (disputes and conflicts of interest), but rather a problemsolving agenda, a positive atmosphere, and constructive contacts and communication.
The above is easier said than done, but the main interests of, and critical issues that concern Western countries, NATO and the EU, and Turkey have been on the table for years, and should be solved one by one. None of these issues, from the refugees and Turkey’s membership in the EU, to the Patriot versus S-400 systems, are unsolvable, or can be shelved indefinitely. All sides have made mistakes, but through good will they can achieve reasonable compromises for the common benefit. Western-Turkish relations need a success story/ a good news story soon.
Western criticism of Turkey’s current democracy deficiencies is legitimate, but this should not block the path to improving mutual relations. Turkey is a NATO ally, not an adversary of the Alliance. There is no reason to treat Turkey like Russia and differently, for example, from Poland or Hungary.
Time cannot be turned back, and the Turkish economic and democratisation “miracle” of the 2000s cannot be repeated in the same fashion under the current government, but the West has the duty and a vested interest in preventing Turkey from unbalancing its policy and strategic choices in favour of Russia (and China).
Turkey’s membership of the EU – that is full membership – depends on achieving consensus between member states. Turkey should be given clear answers regarding the accession negotiations that should be unfrozen in exchange for Ankara’s pledge and tangible steps made towards improving its democracy record.
The customs union agreement between the EU and Turkey could be complemented with clauses that allow Turkish exports of agricultural products to the EU, as a bonus for making steps that improve the state of democracy and freedoms before the elections in 2023.
The EU should negotiate with Turkey a reasonable/acceptable way for visa liberalisation for Turkish citizens.
A renewed peace process, aimed at resolving issues related to Kurdish organisations vis-à-vis fighting terrorism in Syria and elsewhere, could help pave the way to lasting security in Turkey and the region. The West could provide economic incentives to bring all counterparts, including relevant actors in the Kurdish political movements, to the negotiation table. Respect for human rights, territorial integrity and sovereignty of states, and of security arrangements are crucial ingredients of a peace process.
Turkey has the ambition to develop its defence industry, but it has also military capability gaps that it would not be likely to be able to fill by itself. Ideally, Turkey and also Greece should stop blocking cooperation and interaction between NATO and the EU for the benefit of all parties. Turkey could profit from participating in projects under Turkey’s Future Role in NATO 23 China-Russia “Alliance” the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), provided it meets conditions set by the EU for third countries.57
The US could clear the sale of Patriot systems to Turkey, as Ankara expressed its wish to purchase the equipment, to prevent Turkey from buying a second batch of S-400 systems from Russia. It is in the interest of all Allies that Turkey not continue to purchase Russian (and Chinese) military equipment. An acceptable and viable solution could be found regarding the S-400 systems already bought, but not yet activated by Turkey. The US could purchase them from Turkey.
Turkey’s primary goal is to get compensated by the US for the payments already made rather than seeking to return to the F-35 project.58 However, Turkey needs to replace (at least partially) its F-16 fleet in the foreseeable future. Turkey and other Allies, particularly the US, should find a solution as to how Turkey could acquire last generation multipurpose aircraft.

This is key to the integrity of the Alliance, including NATO’s integrated air defence.

Ankara’s claim for a larger Turkish maritime EEZ in the eastern Mediterranean cannot be solved unilaterally, or through the NATO-sponsored bilateral (Greek-Turkish) de-confliction mechanism established in October 2020.59 Turkey should address the issue to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Turkey and the Baltic states, as well as Poland, should multiply their contacts, including at the highest level, and continue to strengthen their defence cooperation. The Baltic states should employ additional incentives for Turkey to become more active in defence and deterrence in the northeastern flank, including contributions to NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence and the enhanced Baltic Air Policing mission.

Turkey is undermining, not strengthening, NATO’s Black Sea defense

Skyler Blake, January 17, 2021, Countering the growing Russian naval threat in the Black Sea region, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/countering-the-growing-russian-naval-threat-in-the-black-sea-region/

A week of high-stakes talks between Russian and Western officials have failed to reduce the geopolitical tension in Eastern Europe, where Moscow has concentrated over 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine and is threatening unspecified “military-technical measures” if its ultimatums on ending Ukrainian-NATO cooperation are not met. While the Baltic Sea has received considerable attention from NATO strategic planners in recent years, the need for a cohesive NATO Black Sea Defense Strategy is now more evident than ever. As current unclassified intelligence suggests, Russian-occupied Crimea could be used as a military staging ground for the southern flank of a potential full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Growing Russian dominance in the Black Sea also raises the possibility of a naval blockade targeting merchant shipping or amphibious landings along Ukraine’s southern coastline in the region around Odesa. Unfortunately, the current NATO strategy to deter Russian aggression in the Black Sea region is dangerously underdeveloped. The region’s three NATO member states Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey have so far been unable to establish a comprehensive Black Sea security strategy together with NATO partners Ukraine and Georgia to counter the challenges posed by Russia. The kind of cooperation required for an effective NATO Black Sea Defense Strategy has so far proved elusive amid political differences between member states. While there is little prospect of progress in Ukraine and Georgia’s membership bids, these two NATO partner nations also have an important role to play in the alliance’s Black Sea strategy. Subscribe for more from UkraineAlert UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture. Email* An achievable first step towards a more coherent NATO position in the Black Sea would be greater Western assistance in rebuilding Ukrainian and Georgian maritime strength. The 1936 Montreux Convention makes maintaining a consistent NATO Black Sea presence difficult, as Turkey retains control over the straits and places considerable constraints on the number, transit time, and tonnage of naval vessels. This enhances the potential role of Black Sea partners Ukraine and Georgia. Ukraine lost the majority of its navy to the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014, while much of Georgia’s navy was destroyed during the country’s 2008 conflict with Russia. Additional funding would enable Ukraine and Georgia to rebuild their naval capabilities according to NATO standards. This would result in more vessels permanently stationed in the Black Sea. This is already happening to a degree, but efforts need to be expedited with regards to the current crisis. The West, however, should be wary of supplying Ukraine and Georgia with corvette-class ships, as larger vessels are expensive to operate. They are also more vulnerable to Russia’s superior naval strength, while the shallow water ports of Odesa and Mykolaiv do not provide suitable infrastructure. With this in mind, the West should continue assisting Ukraine in the assembly of a fleet capable of carrying out its mosquito defense strategy. This should include small, inexpensive patrol boats, amphibious boats capable of landing infantry, and missile attack vessels capable of preventing Russian troop landings. EURASIA CONGRESSIONAL FELLOWSHIP The Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Congressional Fellowship Program aims to educate Congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region and engage staff with the Council’s latest research. The program connects Congressional fellows with our larger community, which includes leading experts on Ukraine, Russia, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus. Applications are open! For questions about the program, please contact Shelby Magid. APPLY TODAY In the event of a major military escalation by Moscow, the NATO goal in the Black Sea would be to adopt an effective “sea denial” strategy. This strategy would entail a force that is capable of at least limiting Russian freedom of navigation in illegally occupied areas. To achieve this presence, NATO could further merge military exercises with its partners Ukraine and Georgia. At this point, Romania is by far the most enthusiastic supporter of a greater alliance presence in the region and, after signing a 10-year cooperation agreement with the US, can be considered a stable anchor for NATO in the Black Sea. The NATO maritime presence in the Black Sea has been steadily decreasing after the initial years of Russian aggression against Ukraine. In February 2017, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pledged to increase the NATO presence in the region, but progress has been suboptimal. The Romanian, Ukrainian and Georgian navies could contribute to the establishment of a permanent Black Sea presence in line with the Montreux Convention, with significantly increased size, scale, and sophistication of their current exercises. It is imperative that a unified land, air, and sea defense strategy should not be excluded. NATO in this area could attempt to replicate the contemporary strategy for the Baltic Sea in the Black Sea. Ukraine holds a regular Black Sea exercise with NATO known as Sea Breeze, as well as the Rapid Trident land exercise and several others. Georgia hosts the Noble Partner army exercise, while the US and Romania jointly organize Saber Guardian. Ben Hodges of the Center for European Policy Analysis has suggested that these should not be isolated exercises, but instead should be linked together as a show of unified Black Sea regional defense. Western planners must remember that Russia respects strength above all else. The fact that there is currently no unified policy within NATO on Black Sea security is a major weakness. Internal differences within the alliance present Russia with opportunities at a highly inopportune moment in relations with the Kremlin. Many in NATO are currently looking for ways to re-engage with Russia by combining deterrence with dialogue. A clear and coherent strategy in the Black Sea would project the kind of strength that Moscow understands and respects.

Turkey’s sale of a drone to the Ukraine may trigger a Russian invasion of the Ukraine and won’t change the power balance

Isabelle Khurshudyan and David L. Stern, 1-16, 22, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/15/ukraine-russia-drones-turkey/, Why Ukraine’s Turkish-made drone became a flash point in tensions with Russia

KYIV — In the drone’s-eye video released by Ukraine’s military, a small, blue targeting square hovers over an image on the ground. After several seconds, a large plume of smoke bursts up from the spot. Two people are then seen running away from the site, where Ukraine claims it destroyed a D-30 howitzer used by Russian-backed separatists in the eastern Donbas region. But the strike on Oct. 26 — from a Bayraktar TB2 drone made by NATO-member Turkey — represented more than another clash in nearly eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine. For Russia, it was another signal that Ukraine is boosting its arsenal to potentially change the military balance in the region — and why Moscow is demanding NATO end all defense cooperation with Ukraine and other former Soviet republics such as Georgia. The United States and its NATO allies say that Russia can never dictate its policies. Stark differences over Ukraine overshadow high-stakes Russia-NATO talks The impasse was clear during high-stakes diplomatic talks in Europe this week between the West and Russia, leaving Russian officials to suggest that future dialogue is pointless. Russia has threatened that it will take “military technical” measures if its requests are rejected Moscow has denied that its buildup of more than 100,000 troops and military hardware near the Ukrainian border is preparation for an attack on the country, though U.S. intelligence has warned that a multipronged invasion could come as soon as this month. Russia planning massive military offensive against Ukraine involving 175,000 troops, U.S. intelligence warns “Russia is seeing a trend where all of these NATO countries are delivering more and more weaponry to Ukraine,” said Rob Lee, a Russian military expert and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “It’s not necessarily that significant yet, but I think they see the trend line, and they don’t like where that trend line is going.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly claimed that NATO could position a long-range missile system in Ukraine before long, though there’s no indication that the military alliance has considered such a step. While the U.S.-provided weapons, such as the Javelin antitank missiles, have garnered the most headlines of Ukraine’s armory, Kyiv’s less-hyped backing from Turkey has raised alarms in Moscow. Not only did the purchase of the Bayraktar TB2 drones come without any apparent conditions on use, but Turkey and Ukraine have agreed to launch a production site of the drones in Ukraine. “I think that, of course, this creates completely different conditions for hostilities,” said Serhiy Zgurets, a Ukrainian military expert. “It is an element of emotional and real influence on the enemy. Liudmyla Kulik stands near her damaged hen house and a fallen tree on Dec. 14. The damage was caused by shelling in October in Hranitne, Ukraine. (Serhiy Morgunov for The Washington Post) Though Ukraine bought its first Bayraktar TB2 drones in 2019, it had held off on using them for strikes in the Donbas conflict until the front-line village of Hranitne came under heavy shelling on Oct. 26. The drones had been used for reconnaissance flights. The artillery strikes from the separatists in October leveled civilian homes and wounded two Ukrainian armed servicemen, one of whom died. In a statement, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said it first demanded a cease-fire through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, but “the reaction from the Russian occupation forces was negative.” The single drone strike followed. “The Armed Forces of Ukraine will continue to increase tactics and methods of combat use of Bayraktars to deter Russian aggression and protect Ukraine’s interests,” the statement said. On Ukraine’s front, a real war overshadows worries about a possible future one with Russia In a December phone conversation between Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Putin brought up the Ukrainians’ use of Turkish-made drones, calling it a “destructive” behavior and “provocative activity,” according to the Kremlin readout. Turkish Foreign Minister Melvut Cavusoglu has said Ankara can’t be blamed for Ukraine’s deployment of the weapons. “This is already completely unpleasant news for the Russians, because this is a dramatic increase in combat capabilities,” said Oleksiy Arestovych, a Kyiv-based military blogger. “Ukraine is acquiring what is considered a ‘game changing app.’ ” The Bayraktar TB2 drones offer countries stealthy air power at a fraction of the cost of maintaining a traditional air force. They have featured prominently in conflicts in Libya and Syria, but it was perhaps Azerbaijan’s use of them in 2020 against Armenia that offered Ukraine an inspiring model. Across 44 days of fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, the drones targeted Armenian and Nagorno-Karabakh soldiers and destroyed tanks, artillery and air defense systems. They tilted the scales in the more-than-three-decade conflict for Azerbaijan, which took back some territory under a cease-fire deal with Armenia Destroyed cars and a crater in the road are the result of a reported drone strike the previous day, Oct. 1, 2020, in Martakert in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, located within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan but widely controlled by ethnic Armenians. (Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images) While some NATO countries are cautious about weapons sales to Ukraine, Turkey is a “wild card,” said Lee, the Russian military expert. Germany, for example, has blocked Ukraine’s purchase of defensive weapons through the NATO Support and Procurement Agency, Ukrainian officials have said Russia and Germany have economic cooperation via the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that runs through Danish waters to Germany, bypassing existing supply routes through Ukraine. Some Western countries are wary of supplying Ukraine with more weapons because that could be deemed a provocation for Russia, or even serve as a pretext for an attack. “They’re afraid,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said of the Germans. “They constantly stick rods in our tires over this issue.” In their shared sea, Ukraine and Russia already risk direct conflict every day Sinan Ulgen, director of the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, said Turkey’s support for Ukraine was a “delicate and difficult balancing act” because of Turkey’s relationship with Russia, which has “elements of cooperation but elements of competition and rivalry.” It has resulted in a complicated geopolitical relationship between Moscow and Ankara over the past few years. Turkish and Russian soldiers and mercenaries have faced off in armed conflict in Syria and Libya. At the same time, Turkey has purchased a sophisticated air defense system from Russia, a move that angered its NATO partners and resulted in sanctions from the United States. While Erdogan’s government has taken a hard line in refusing to recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, it has not followed Europe and the United States in sanctioning Moscow. Turkey also sees in Ukraine an opportunity to expand the growing list of customers for its armed drones and take advantage of Ukraine’s defense production capabilities, including its ability to manufacture rocket engines, Ulgen said. At the mention of “Turkish drones,” Danilov responded: “They’re ours, which we bought. … Engines for these drones are being made in our country.” Ukraine’s foreign minister wants West to clarify its sanction threats to Moscow But while the drones were a “game-changer” in other battles between countries with less sophisticated military hardware, it’s unlikely they would make much of a difference against Russia, Lee said. Russia’s Defense Ministry has already posted images of training exercises for how to counter Bayraktar TB2 drones. “If Ukraine gets into a fight with Russia, Russia will destroy them,” Lee said. “Russia could shoot them down, or even before that, they can destroy the airfields where TB2s operate, or they can destroy the ground control station.” “The TB2s have never faced an integrated air-defense system like the one Russia has,” he added.

Turkey successfully challenged Russia in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict

Chauvsky, 1-14, 22, Eugene Chausovsky is a nonresident fellow at the Newlines Institute. Chausovsky previously served as senior Eurasia analyst at the geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor for more than 10 years. His work focuses on political, economic, and security issues pertaining to Russia, Eurasia, and the Middle East, Foreign Policy, Russia Is Worried About Challenges in the Caucasus, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/14/russia-csto-caucasus-nagorno-karabakh/

Stepping in was meant also to limit the influence of Turkey, whose security support for Azerbaijan via weaponry including TB2 drones proved pivotal in helping the country’s forces break through Armenian defenses. Thus, Russia intervened as a mediator to oversee a cease-fire and transfer of territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia to Azerbaijan, which was painful to accept for Yerevan but at the same time was much less than what Armenian forces would have otherwise likely lost on the battlefield. Armenia and Azerbaijan both agreed to the Moscow-brokered armistice, with its implementation consisting of the deployment of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers in November 2020. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict highlighted Russia’s regional power status and Moscow’s continued ability to shape events, but it also revealed that Moscow’s influence has limitations. After all, Russia’s preferred outcome would have been the prewar status quo, but Azerbaijan, along with its own ally in Turkey, was able to forcefully challenge this status quo. This challenge substantially raised the profile of Ankara in the region, with Moscow agreeing to a joint Russian-Turkish monitoring center to oversee the cease-fire implementation and Russia having no choice but to acknowledge the important regional power role played by Turkey. The year since has also revealed key constraints to Russia’s influence in the region. Despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, both Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have violated the cease-fire on a periodic and sometimes deadly basis. And Turkey has been able to leverage its increased influence for its own political and economic gains, most notably in its support for Azerbaijan’s regional transport and infrastructure initiatives and its diplomatic outreach to Armenia to resume trade and flights, and to revive the long-dormant process of political normalization. To be sure, Russia has played an important part in all of these discussions, but Moscow is no longer the only major actor in shaping the geopolitics of the Caucasus. While Russia’s military presence in the region mitigated the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, it has not been enough to prevent eruptions of violence or to bring about a sustainable peace. In the meantime, Turkey has proved its willingness and ability to directly challenge Russia in the region, even as the two countries cooperate in other spheres such as energy and weapons sales. The world is becoming more multipolar, which can serve as both a benefit and a challenge to entrenched powers—including Moscow. This brings us back to the unfolding events in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. In the Ukrainian case, Russia is still trying to push back against the political, economic, and security influence of the West, while seeking guarantees against the prospects of NATO enlargement it has fought to avoid. In Kazakhstan, Russia is less worried about the West, but it could see its position as the dominant external power giving way to others, including China and perhaps even Turkey. While Russia has established a pragmatic division of labor of sorts with China in Central Asia, Moscow cannot be sure this working arrangement will last forever. And Russia can be even less sure of Turkey’s intentions, considering that the two have been on opposing sides of conflicts in such areas as Syria and Libya, and that Turkish TB2 drones are now being sold to the likes of Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Thus, there is a broader connection between what is happening in the Caucasus and the events that are unfolding in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The Kremlin finds its dominant power status in the former Soviet periphery being challenged from numerous directions, and Russia’s CSTO deployment in Kazakhstan and its military maneuvers along the Ukrainian border are intended to show that Moscow is both able and willing to use military force to maintain its position as the dominant regional power in the post-Soviet space. However, such military actions may only take Russia so far, and they have their own risk of blowback. For example, Russia has to consider that its CSTO deployment to Kazakhstan may set a dangerous precedent, as other member states like Armenia are no strangers to mass protests and unrest. For example, if violent demonstrations were to erupt in Armenia in the future, would Russia have to intervene again? And if so, could it be certain such an intervention will succeed? Such questions could become increasingly relevant as Armenia and Azerbaijan continue to stare each other down and Turkey and others look to expand their position in the region. The Caucasus may soon prove to be no less dynamic and consequential than Eastern Europe or Central Asia, both for Russia and the powers with which it contends.

Turkey will work to diffuse the Ukraine conflict but side with NATO if push comes to shove

Asli Aydintasbas, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, January 14, 2022, War in Ukraine: Erdogan’s greatest challenge yet, https://ecfr.eu/article/war-in-ukraine-erdogans-greatest-challenge-yet/

As the spectre of war in Ukraine looms over Europe, what individual NATO members do – or choose not to do – will have a geopolitical impact on how any conflict unfolds. When it comes to Ukraine, Turkey is no ordinary NATO member. It has recently been selling armed drones to Kyiv – some of which the Ukrainian military has already used in Donbas, to great effect, against pro-Russian targets. Turkey is also a close ally of Russia, and a key trading partner – and Ankara has been careful not to step on Moscow’s toes across different conflict zones. Under Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin, Turkey and Russia share much more than meets the eye. The two resurgent powers want to shake up the post-Soviet world order, they each have a disdain for liberal norms, and they both want a greater role on the world stage for their respective countries. Turkey and Russia have also developed a unique form of relationship, often dubbed “competitive cooperation,” whereby they back opposing sides in conflicts in Libya, Syria, and the South Caucasus but do so in a way that recognises each other’s expanding sphere of influence. This unique relationship between Erdogan and Putin can be hard for Western countries to fully comprehend. In 2014, Turkey criticised the Russian invasion of Crimea but did not join the US-led sanctions against Russia. In 2017, Turkey signed a deal to buy the Russian-made S-400 missile system and, against American objections, received it in 2019, despite the threat of US sanctions. No doubt Ankara will want to stay out of any military conflict with Russia over Ukraine. Despite its growing defence sales to Ukraine, its instinct will be to try to sit on the fence. In all likelihood, Ankara would join with its NATO partners in condemning a Russian invasion; but it would not go with them in imposing sanctions. Erdogan will aim to continue cooperation with Russia in Syria and in the economic sphere; but he would also step up engagement with NATO, with the aim of improving his global standing and reducing international criticism of him for his domestic conduct. This last point is becoming more important for the Turkish leader as a united opposition emerges against him and opinion polls show an anti-Erdogan majority. This is a tough course to follow, though. If an invasion happens and NATO starts supplying weapons to the Ukrainian forces, would Ankara continue to deliver armed drones to Kyiv? Would it facilitate NATO access to the Black Sea? Would it slow its burgeoning relations with Russia? It is too early to know the answers to these questions. But, given the significant leverage Russia has over Turkey in Syria, and over its tottering economy, Ankara would likely seek to do just enough to elevate its standing with NATO (and use this as an opportunity to improve ties with Washington) but less than what it would take to trigger a Russian reprisal. Here is why. In Syria, Ankara depends on Moscow’s consent to continue to control the safe zone Turkish troops established after mounting successive incursions into the country. Russia controls the air space and everything else around. And it is largely Russia’s presence that holds together the fragile ceasefire in northern Syria between the Syrian opposition, the Syrian regime, Turkey, and the Syrian Kurds. Turkey would pay a huge price in Syria if Russia turned against it over its stance on Ukraine Turkey would therefore pay a huge price in Syria if Russia turned against it over its stance on Ukraine. For example, in Idlib, several million Syrians live in a safe haven run by the Syrian opposition, with Turkish support. But this part of the country is vulnerable to a regime offensive, should Russia sign off on this. It would only take a few sorties by the Syrian or the Russian air force to create panic among the Sunni population in Idlib and force millions of Syrians towards the Turkish border – something that Ankara cannot afford to have, given the presence of already four million Syrian refugees in Turkey and growing anti-Syrian sentiments among the public. Russia also has great economic leverage over Turkey. In addition to the S-400s, Russia is building Turkey’s first nuclear reactor, it has recently constructed a pipeline underneath the Black Sea to Turkey, and it is supplying the bulk of Turkey’s natural gas. Despite Ankara’s desire for energy diversification, Turkish cities still need Russian natural gas to stay warm. This does not mean Ankara is a Russian vassal or happy about this dependence on Moscow. But it does mean Turks will tread gingerly when it comes to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ankara also has a close relationship with Kyiv and has consistently supported the independence of Ukraine, Moldova, and other post-Soviet countries – in the much same way that the Ottomans sought to prevent Russian expansion for centuries, for example, aligning with Western powers against Russia in the Crimean war. Kemalist Turkey initially aligned itself with the Soviet Union but later sought to limit its influence by joining NATO in 1952. Erdogan met Volodymyr Zelensky several times in 2021, and Ukraine has also purchased at least a dozen Bayraktar TB2 drones from Turkey – which eventually irritated Moscow enough to prompt a telephone conversation between Erdogan and Putin. Ukrainian firms have what Turkey’s defence industry lacks – know-how about how to produce diesel engines for Turkey’s ambitious defence projects, including tanks and fighter jets. If an invasion happens, Turkey would be under pressure from NATO to keep supplying Ukraine with drones and other equipment. There might be demands for entry into and out of the Black Sea, controlled at the Bosporus by Turkey. And if Turkey wants an exemption from Western sanctions on Russia, it would be asked to do more to help an anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine – which American officials have said they are prepared to support if diplomacy fails. But, while Ukraine may be a useful partner for Turkey, and a good vehicle to improve Ankara’s troubled relations with NATO, from a Turkish perspective the country is not a strategic prize worth going to war over. In the crucible of conflict, neither NATO nor Russia will appreciate Turkish ambiguity, and each will seek subtle ways to pressure Turkey to take a stand. Turkey has been here before – it attempted a similar approach in both the first and second world war, succeeding in the latter case but failing miserably and catastrophically in the first. Erdogan has in the past proven himself a master of such geopolitical balancing. But, with a weakened position at home and alienated partners abroad, a war in Ukraine would be his greatest challenge to date.

Turkey destroying human rights

Human Rights Watch, January 13, 2022, Turkey Defies International Human Rights Law, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/13/turkey-defies-international-human-rights-law

The government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has set back Turkey’s human rights record by decades and flagrantly defies international human rights law, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2022. In 2021 Turkey was the first country to withdraw from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention. In December Turkey’s refusal to free the human rights defender Osman Kavala, prompted the Council of Europe to begin the process for sanctioning the government’s persistent defiance of a binding European Court of Human Rights judgment ordering his release. Turkey is the second country in the history of the Council of Europe to face such a sanctions process. “President Erdogan has over the past year followed a course to dispense with Turkey’s adherence to the framework of international human rights law,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention is a setback for women’s rights and efforts to combat domestic violence; and opting to be sanctioned by the Council of Europe rather than release Osman Kavala from arbitrary and unlawful detention demonstrates contempt for the European Court of Human Rights.” In the 752-page World Report 2022, its 32nd edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in nearly 100 countries. Executive Director Kenneth Roth challenges the conventional wisdom that autocracy is ascendent. In country after country, large numbers of people have recently taken to the streets, even at the risk of being arrested or shot, showing that the appeal of democracy remains strong. Meanwhile, autocrats are finding it more difficult to manipulate elections in their favor. Still, he says, democratic leaders must do a better job of meeting national and global challenges and of making sure that democracy delivers on its promised dividends. Turkey has a restrictive environment for the media, for human rights defenders, for the LGBT community, for Kurdish political activists, and for other perceived government critics. Former leading politicians from the parliamentary opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have been detained for five years and a closure case against the whole party is before the Constitutional Court. Political control over courts is at the core of the deep erosion of rule of law in Turkey. Impunity remains entrenched for police abuses and for cases of enforced disappearances. Turkey remains host to the highest number of refugees in the world, with an estimated 3.7 million Syrian refugees in the country, in addition to asylum seekers from other countries. Turkey continued building a wall in 2021 along its eastern border with Iran, and summarily pushed back Afghans and others apprehended attempting to cross the border.

Turkey’s provision of drones to the Ukraine risks war and won’t deter war

Stein, January 2022, Dr. Aaron Stein is the Director of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the coeditor of The Russian Way of War in Syria: Implications for the West, an edited volume examining Russian operations in the civil war. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, The U.S. War Against ISIS: How America and its Allies Defeated the Caliphate (I.B. Tauris, 2022). Previously, Dr. Stein was a resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council. He also hosts the Arms Control Wonk and the Chain Reaction podcasts. Dr. Stein was previously a doctoral fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (Switzerland), an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (London), and Nonproliferation Program Manager at the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (Istanbul), Turkey’s Response to the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/01/turkeys-response-to-the-russia-ukraine-crisis/

On October 26, 2021, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense released video of a TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) striking a separatist D-30 howitzer in Russian-occupied Donbas. The strike was Ukraine’s first confirmed use of the now ubiquitous TB2, the Bayraktar-manufactured drone that the Turkish military has used to great tactical effect in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh. The Turkish-Ukrainian defense relationship is understudied, but it could become an important factor in how Russian elites view North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) support for non-member Ukraine, and be used to justify an invasion to assuage Moscow’s concerns about a US-allied military presence along its borders. The Turkish support for Ukraine is not the main driver of Russian discomfort about the future of Ukraine. The TB2 is also not a decisive game changer, and the use of UCAVs is almost certain to have little impact on how Russian leadership weighs risk during debates about the efficacy of armed conflict in a neighboring state. Nevertheless, Turkish-Ukrainian defense ties are worthy of deeper study, precisely because Ankara’s relationships with Kyiv and Moscow have a secondary impact on American interests in Eastern Europe.

CONTINUES

These two actions are in contradiction with one another, but also demonstrate how Turkish leaders are comfortable compartmentalizing the country’s international relationship to pursue policies that elites have decided are in its best interests. The Turkish-Ukrainian relationship is almost certain to continue. The two sides have a mutually beneficial defense industry relationship. Ankara will have to balance any such cooperation with Kyiv with its very real interests in managing ties with Moscow. Russia and Turkey can, in theory, manage their disagreements about Ukraine, precisely because each side has an interest in retaining functioning relations. Turkey’s NATO membership, however, creates secondary issues for the United States. Moscow can point to NATO support for Ukraine — to include Turkish support for Kyiv — as a reason for future military action.

Turkey strengthening its relationship with Russia and becoming undemocratic

On October 26, 2021, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense released video of a TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) striking a separatist D-30 howitzer in Russian-occupied Donbas. The strike was Ukraine’s first confirmed use of the now ubiquitous TB2, the Bayraktar-manufactured drone that the Turkish military has used to great tactical effect in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh. The Turkish-Ukrainian defense relationship is understudied, but it could become an important factor in how Russian elites view North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) support for non-member Ukraine, and be used to justify an invasion to assuage Moscow’s concerns about a US-allied military presence along its borders. The Turkish support for Ukraine is not the main driver of Russian discomfort about the future of Ukraine. The TB2 is also not a decisive game changer, and the use of UCAVs is almost certain to have little impact on how Russian leadership weighs risk during debates about the efficacy of armed conflict in a neighboring state. Nevertheless, Turkish-Ukrainian defense ties are worthy of deeper study, precisely because Ankara’s relationships with Kyiv and Moscow have a secondary impact on American interests in Eastern Europe. The Turkish-Russian relationship is marred by bureaucratic distrust, which is papered over by a very functional leader-to-leader dynamic that enables the two Black Sea neighbors to cooperate and manage numerous regional conflicts. The Turkish-Ukrainian dynamic, in turn, is part of a broader Turkish effort to establish itself as an independent actor, committed to pursuing a foreign policy that often clashes with much of the NATO alliance. This paper will explore Turkish-Russian and Turkish-Ukrainian relations; the reasons for Turkey’s efforts to “fence sit” and establish itself as a neutral political actor in the Black Sea; and what these efforts portend for US interests in the region. Ankara’s relationship with Moscow is multi-faceted and often misunderstood. Turkey was a bulwark against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but Turkish national elites have always been aware of the country’s close proximity to its larger neighbor, and have sought to manage ties with the leadership in Moscow. In the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkish elites have debated Ankara’s role in the world, the country’s alliance with the United States, and how best to maximize Turkish interests in the former Soviet space. In general, there is a consensus in Turkey that Ankara has considerable economic and political interests in deepening its relationships with all of its neighbors, including Russia. Turkey’s current ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) adopted this basic philosophy, but fused elements of it with Islamist tropes about colonialism and identity in the Middle East. As the AKP has radicalized, it has sought common cause with elements of the far right in Turkish politics, the MHP, and the group’s argument that Ankara’s alliance with the West is detrimental to the country’s future and that Turkey should explore deepening ties with Russia and the ethnic Turkic states along its periphery. Turkish domestic politics changed considerably after a failed coup attempt in July 2016. The attempted putsch further isolated current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and justified his complete overhaul of government. The result has been the erosion of Turkey’s liberal institutions and the emergence of an authoritarian state, dependent on the fiat of the country’s president. At the same time, Ankara’s relationship with the United States and the European Union has cratered, following severe disagreements about strategy and tactics to defeat Islamic State in Syria and over Ankara’s own democratic failings back home. The Turkish-Russian relationship has flourished during the same period; especially since Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first world leader to call Erdoğan after putschists tried to kill him. The leader-to-leader relationship has since flourished, giving way to joint efforts to manage conflict in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Turkish decision to purchase the Russian-made S-400 air and missile defense system.

Turkish invasion of Syrian has undermined US efforts against ISIS

Stein, January 2022, Dr. Aaron Stein is the Director of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the coeditor of The Russian Way of War in Syria: Implications for the West, an edited volume examining Russian operations in the civil war. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, The U.S. War Against ISIS: How America and its Allies Defeated the Caliphate (I.B. Tauris, 2022). Previously, Dr. Stein was a resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council. He also hosts the Arms Control Wonk and the Chain Reaction podcasts. Dr. Stein was previously a doctoral fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (Switzerland), an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (London), and Nonproliferation Program Manager at the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (Istanbul), Turkey’s Response to the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, https://www.fpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/turkeys-response-to-the-russia-ukraine-crisis.pdf

In the weeks following the failed coup, Ankara moved ahead with an invasion of northern Syria. The United States had formed a close partnership with the Syrian Kurds to fight the Islamic State. The main Kurdish militia, the Peoples’ Protection Units, is an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK has been fighting inside Turkey since 1984. The group is listed in Turkey, the United States, and the European Union. Turkish officials accuse the United States of supporting terrorism and have justified three separate invasions of Syria on the basis of fighting terrorism. These interventions, however, have hindered the US-led war against ISIS, raising tensions between Ankara and much of the Western alliance.

Russia could easily defeat drones provided by Turkey

Stein, January 2022, Dr. Aaron Stein is the Director of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the coeditor of The Russian Way of War in Syria: Implications for the West, an edited volume examining Russian operations in the civil war. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, The U.S. War Against ISIS: How America and its Allies Defeated the Caliphate (I.B. Tauris, 2022). Previously, Dr. Stein was a resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council. He also hosts the Arms Control Wonk and the Chain Reaction podcasts. Dr. Stein was previously a doctoral fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (Switzerland), an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (London), and Nonproliferation Program Manager at the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (Istanbul), Turkey’s Response to the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, https://www.fpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/turkeys-response-to-the-russia-ukraine-crisis.pdf

Ankara, however, is acutely aware of its need to have functional relations with the United States. The Russian build-up in Ukraine has, therefore, given Turkish policymakers a tool to try and tout its anti-Russian bonafides. The centerpiece of this argument is Ankara’s relationship with Kyiv. The United States has some interest in supporting Turkey’s defense industrial relationship with Kyiv, but should understand the limits of the TB2. The small Turkish drone has considerable value in Kyiv’s clashes against Russian backed separatists. However, in a true shooting war with Russian forces, the drone could be destroyed on the ground or picked off by orbiting fighters or Russian air defenses. The small number of drones does not alter the balance of power. The TB2, in this sense, is functionally irrelevant in a high-intensity conflict.

Russia can offset the TB12 drone and its provision could be used to justify an invasion

Stein, January 2022, Dr. Aaron Stein is the Director of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the coeditor of The Russian Way of War in Syria: Implications for the West, an edited volume examining Russian operations in the civil war. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, The U.S. War Against ISIS: How America and its Allies Defeated the Caliphate (I.B. Tauris, 2022). Previously, Dr. Stein was a resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council. He also hosts the Arms Control Wonk and the Chain Reaction podcasts. Dr. Stein was previously a doctoral fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (Switzerland), an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (London), and Nonproliferation Program Manager at the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (Istanbul), Turkey’s Response to the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, https://www.fpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/turkeys-response-to-the-russia-ukraine-crisis.pdf

For the Ukraine situation, more specifically, Ankara can pursue a variation of this “fencesitting” policy. Ankara can continue to export defense items to Kyiv, while simultaneously engaging Moscow, and resisting any US calls to independently support any coercive actions against Russia. Instead, Turkey is more likely to operate within the alliance, but resist calls to join US or EU calls to impose sanctions in response to an invasion. These sanctions would undermine Turkish economic policy, which depends on cooperation with Russia on issues ranging from energy to agriculture to tourism. It is not in Ankara’s interests to isolate Russia. For these reasons, Akinci drone on display at Teknofest 2019 (Wikimeda Commons/ Talha Işık) 20 FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE the US has to contend with a Turkish arms policy that risks irking Russia, but which provides both Kyiv and Washington with few tangible benefits. The TB2 and the Akinci (if it is ever exported) do not alter the balance of power. Instead, any tangible gain Kyiv attains over the Donbas insurgents is mitigated by an increased Russian commitment to the enclaves it has seized. Moscow, in short, has escalation dominance. The US, in turn, is called upon to guarantee the security of the eastern NATO states and to deploy forces to reassure allies. Turkey is an important NATO member, but it does not guarantee the security of the alliance. This reality means that the US has an interest in how allied actions impact broader alliance security. In this case, the current level of TurkishUkrainian cooperation has greater positive outcomes for Ankara. The Ukrainian supply of engines has enabled the development of a larger turbo-prop powered drone and may power the next generation of Turkish air power. This relationship has helped to insulate Turkey from a downturn in relations with the United States. The future of the relationship could also further Ankara’s interest in developing its own, autarkic defense industry. The Turkish support for Kyiv does enhance the armed forces’ capabilities against the separatists. It does not have a tangible impact on the balance of power with Russia. Instead, the potential negative outcome from continued and deeper cooperation — to include the provision of long-range strike systems — could actually make the situation worse and give Moscow a narrative to justify military action. The United States will be embroiled in the outcome of this tripartite balancing act. Washington guarantees Turkish and NATO security, protecting Ankara from escalation with Moscow. The Russian armed forces are certain to retain military overmatch against its smaller neighbors. Absent a credible US guarantee, Ukraine may forever be susceptible to Russian military coercion. The Turkish role, in this scenario, is beneficial for certain contingencies, but also not determinative in shifting the asymmetry of power.

Turkey working to resolve the Ukraine crisis and secure the Black Sea

Arzu Addison, January 12, 2012, TURKEY ASKS AMERICA AND RUSSIA TO REST https://www.campuslately.com/turkey-asks-america-and-russia-to-rest/

Turkey’s defense minister said further escalation of tensions should be avoided, as he believed that any sudden and bad move could easily lead to a chain reaction. It is especially important for Turkey not to get out of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which are close to it, since inflation in the country will almost certainly rise sharply, and the tourism sector, which is vital for Ankara, may be hit hard. . Turkey, which has the second largest force in NATO, proposes to implement the 1936 Montreux Convention to ensure stability in the Black Sea region. This means that the fleet of the countries bordering the Black Sea will not be allowed to stay in the region for more than 21 days, but it will also limit the number of foreign warships allowed to enter the Black Sea through the Turkish Strait and generally prohibit the stationing of foreign warships. Aircraft carriers. Turkey has so far refrained from confronting Russia over the Ukraine crisis, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s foreign policy maneuvering playing a major role. Indeed, Erdogan seeks to maintain Turkish influence in regions such as the Caucasus, Libya or Syria, where Russia is also present militarily.

Turkey working to resolve the Ukraine crisis and secure the Black Sea

Arzu Addison, January 12, 2012, TURKEY ASKS AMERICA AND RUSSIA TO REST https://www.campuslately.com/turkey-asks-america-and-russia-to-rest/

Even if Erdogan is more authoritarian, this is transitional and Turkey is a democracy

Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı Director, Ankara Office, Gkreen Marchall Fund, January 12, 2022, https://www.gmfus.org/news/it-not-too-early-think-about-political-change-turkey, It Is Not Too Early to Think About Political Change in Turkey

After almost 20 years of uninterrupted rule by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, first as prime minister and then as president, Turkey may be on the verge of political change. While this is a possibility rather than a foregone conclusion, its allies and partners should be prepared for such an outcome. Not too long ago, it was widely believed that Erdoğan could not be defeated in an election due to several factors, including the devotion of his supporters, his political savvy, and the lack of a viable opposition. After the failed coup attempt in July 2016 and the repressive state of emergency that followed, a new narrative emerged: Turkey was now an authoritarian state where election outcomes would be predetermined. Others argued that, while they are unfair, elections are real and competitive, with the opposition having a genuine chance of winning. The latter argument was proven correct in the March 2019 local elections. The opposition won in most of the metropolitan cities, including Ankara and İstanbul. The rerun of the elections in İstanbul, based on flimsy arguments, cast a shadow over Turkey’s electoral democracy, but ultimately the city’s voters made their will indisputably clear and the opposition won by an even bigger margin in the rerun. The next presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 2023, but early ones cannot be ruled out. Erdoğan has been sliding significantly in opinion polls since the local elections, indicating that his reelection cannot be taken for granted. Several factors have contributed to this situation. First, the change from a parliamentary to a presidential system of government has not worked well for Erdoğan. In the new system, his Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been sidelined by presidential bureaucrats and advisors who do not necessarily have connections to the party grassroots. As a result of this and of losing major municipalities in 2019, the clientelist network that the AKP and Erdoğan used to enjoy has been largely disrupted. The presidential system came with two other changes that had negative outcomes for Erdoğan. The 50 percent plus one threshold to be elected president and the legalization of formal electoral alliances led him to ally the AKP with the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP). His dependence on the MHP has not only limited his policy choices but also alienated some AKP voters such as conservative Kurds. While the audience for the opposition’s message is growing by the day, that of Erdoğan is gradually but steadily shrinking. Second, the social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP) was able to form an alliance with a diverse set of parties—including one moderate nationalist, one hardcore Islamist, and one center-right party—gaining the ability to address a wider audience. The CHP then changed its political discourse. In the past, it engaged in a rigid secular, antireligious, and nationalist rhetoric, and it “othered” religious conservatives and Kurds. It supported repressive measures such as the infamous headscarf ban of the 1990s. This approach had confined CHP to a marginal ideological corner. Under its current president, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the party has gradually pivoted away from this approach, hesitantly at first and more decisively recently. He went so far as to publicly apologize to those his party has wronged in the past. While the audience for the opposition’s message is growing by the day, that of Erdoğan is gradually but steadily shrinking. The opposition bloc had another problem: cohesion and coherence. Initially, its common denominator was little more than anti-Erdoğanism. However, it has recently begun building a proactive and positive shared agenda, such as restoring the parliamentary system and advancing democratic freedoms. Third, Turkey is experiencing its worst currency crisis since the 2001 economic crisis that propelled the AKP to power. Due to the increasing political risks, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and most notably unorthodox monetary policies such as keeping the interest rate below inflation, which Erdoğan insists on, the Turkish lira has devalued by more than 50 percent in a year. The devaluation was partially curbed only through the guarantee by the Treasury to indemnify holders of lira deposits if devaluation exceeds the interest rate. As a result of the devaluation, inflation has jumped to 36 percent as of the start of the year. Unless there is an unexpected development, Erdoğan, the opposition candidate, and likely the candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (HDP) will face off in the presidential election. The HDP was never invited to join the opposition bloc because it was thought that this would not go down well with the voters of the other opposition parties. The HDP has not taken issue with this and in the case of a second round, which is more likely than not, its voters are expected to support the opposition bloc candidate. Under these conditions, one can envision three scenarios for the country. More of the Same Erdoğan could be reelected despite the disadvantages he is now experiencing. Any combination of unexpected improvements in the economy, a crisis that looks like a national emergency, making the vote counting less transparent, and finding other ways to make the election even less fair—or mistakes by the opposition, such as picking the wrong candidate—could result in another victory for Erdoğan. This scenario would likely see more of the same trajectory in Turkey, but accelerated. Some observers take this scenario further—to the election not taking place in an orderly fashion or to Erdoğan not conceding if he loses. Given that that the AKP candidate, under instructions from Erdoğan, did not concede after losing the local elections in İstanbul and that the stakes would be much higher in the presidential election, this perspective must not be dismissed. However, Turkey has a long tradition of democratic elections and a vibrant opposition, and the system monitoring the ballots and protecting votes has proved resilient so far. Moreover, Turkey is an open market economy that needs foreign capital inflows to sustain its growth, and for this reason it cannot afford a Belarus scenario for long. Change of Season This is a scenario in which the opposition wins the presidential election. This could lead to a bare minimum of democratization steps or political paralysis. The former will represent a slow transition, the latter a transition crisis that can scuttle the transition. Because a new president would be elected with the support of a very diverse group of political parties and would need their support in the parliament, he or she would have an incentive to adopt an inclusive, consensual, and pluralistic governing style. This would pave the way to the reversal of some of the recent democratic backsliding. The rule of law, media freedom, and human rights would improve and the space for civil society would grow. However, ideological differences among the parties supporting the new president could prevent them from making constitutional changes to advance and consolidate democratic reforms. Even if the parliamentary system is restored, Turkey’s democracy would look a lot like the one before the failed coup attempt in 2016—a nominal democracy in need of comprehensive modernization. This would be a shaky and reversable democratization. It would still be spring, but winter would likely follow.

Kazakhstan proves turkey fails at regional peacekeeping

News.am, January 12, 2022, Turkey’s Turkic world ambitions face reality check in Kazakhstan, https://news.am/eng/news/681665.html

Turkey’s aspirations to lead the greater Turkic world and become a Eurasian heavyweight has met a “reality check,” analysts said, as violence erupted in the ex-Soviet, Turkic nation of Kazakhstan last week. Here’s the full text of the article: When the oil, gas and uranium-rich country needed security assistance to maintain order, it was the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that it turned to. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory Monday, after swiftly deploying CSTO forces to guard critical Kazakh infrastructure, allowing Kazakh forces to concentrate on tackling protesters. “I am confident that our joint efforts will make it possible to fully reestablish control over the situation nationwide and to stabilize it,” Putin told fellow CSTO members in an emergency session. “We must make sure that events similar to the tragedy happening in the brotherly country of Kazakhstan will not catch us by surprise again and that we are fully mobilized and ready to push back against any new provocation,” he said, hinting to leaders of other ex-Soviet states that the alliance would protect them too. Geopolitical analyst Michael Tanchum noted that the intervention by Russia and the CSTO in Kazakhstan was “an important cautionary signal” for Turkey and the freshly revamped Organization of Turkic States, “that their ambitions should not outrun their capacity.” In the wake of the Turkish-assisted victory by Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia in 2020, “a certain ‘Turan’ (greater Turkic world) euphoria took hold on social media,” Tanchum, a senior fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy and a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said. This gained further momentum last November, when Turkey became the rotating president of the Organization of Turkic States and changed the group’s name from the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council). The leaders opened a new headquarters in Istanbul and adopted a strategy document titled “Turkic World Vision 2040.” Ambitious maps of a “Turkic World” emerged on social media after the gathering, with some engulfing western China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region and parts of eastern Russia. “Russia confronts a new geopolitical reality of Turkey as a rising Eurasian agenda-setter with its own capacity to reorient connectivity across the Caspian basin and Central Asia,” Tanchum said. “This potential was greatly enhanced by the November 2020 ceasefire agreement that created a corridor through Armenia connecting Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, providing Ankara direct connectivity with Azerbaijan and all of Turkic Central Asia.” “Russia looks on all of these developments with concern. China does as well,” Tanchum said. Rich Outzen, a former U.S. military officer and State Department policy-planning official, said, “This has been a great reality check” for Turkey’s ambitions via the Organization of Turkic States. “Just because a great power like the United States is less interested in the region, with the Afghanistan pullout, it doesn’t mean that other great powers like Russia or China are also less interested and there is a free hand to shape anything the way other countries of the region want to.” “Russians have near-imperial interests in the area and absolutely want to shape it according to their wishes. Chinese as well,” Outzen said. He said the Organization of Turkic States was about “three years late” in terms of Kazakhstan, and Turkey’s success in assisting fellow Turkic state Azerbaijan in its 2020 war could not be used as a comparison to measure Ankara’s growing influence in the region. Relations with other Turkic countries like Kazakhstan are developing at a comparatively slower pace, Outzen noted. Although not an international security body like the CSTO, the Organization of Turkic States promotes the integration of Turkic-speaking countries in a wide range of areas from culture to connectivity. Members span from Turkey to Central Asia and include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Turkmenistan, which embraces a “permanent neutrality” policy, is the newest observer member and joins Hungary on the sidelines of the body. Ukraine has expressed interest in joining as an observer. On Jan. 6, as violence spread in Kazakhstan, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held separate calls with leaders of the Central Asian Turkic states, including Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Erdogan told Tokayev that Turkey was closely following the developments taking place in the “friendly and brotherly” Kazakhstan. To the other Turkic leaders, Erdogan underscored the importance of stability and security in Kazakhstan in terms of its neighbors and the entire region. On Tuesday, Turkey conveyed a video conference of the foreign ministers of the Organization of Turkic States. A joint statement issued after the meeting drew attention to the Turkic World Vision 2040 document as a “guideline for coordination, cooperation and mutual assistance in addressing domestic and international challenges.” Speaking to Nikkei Asia, Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to Ankara Abzal Saparbekuly explained that Kazakhstani Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi did not put forward any request to the Turkic organization during the video conference, “but gave a detailed explanation of the accounts to member states.” “That was what the members wanted to hear, firsthand,” Saparbekuly said. “From here going forward, what kind of cooperation can be done will be decided at the next face-to-face meeting of member states,” he added. The Turkic World Vision 2040 document refers to building “a network for cooperation and information sharing among member states to combat threats of radicalization, violent extremism, Islamophobia, xenophobia and terrorism, and to ensure border security.” It also talks of jointly fighting organized crime, illegal drug trade, irregular migration as well as economic, financial and cybercrimes, but no reference is made to joint peace-keeping missions among member states. While Turkish officials have taken a careful and neutral stance on Russia and CSTO involvement in Kazakhstan, Turkish hawks have begun to call for a similar “Greater Turkic army” that can respond to such incidents. Retired Rear Admiral Cihat Yayci, who served as chief of staff of Turkish Naval Forces until 2020, told local media: “A Turan army should be established.” Yayci said it is unacceptable that Armenian forces entered Kazakhstan in the name of peace-keeping forces. Such comments will surely be monitored closely in Moscow and Beijing. Asked about the possibility of a future peace-keeping mission mandate for the organization on Saturday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar told reporters: “These are all possibilities and all possibilities are on the table. As developments unfold, any such measures can be taken.” Akar added that Erdogan’s statement that Turkey is ready to share all kinds of information and experience with Kazakhstan “is an instruction for us.” “When any request, demand arrives and if we are instructed and ordered as such, we are ready to provide all kinds of help and support to our Kazakhstani brothers,” he said. Saparbekuly, the Kazakh envoy, said that while the Vision 2040 document does not discuss peace-keeping missions, “After the recent developments in Kazakhstan, every country will evaluate its sovereign decision” on whether to take part in such missions if they were introduced by the Turkic organization, “in line with their respective national interests and international agreements.” Saparbekuly previously served as deputy secretary general of the organization. Although Turkey has recently stepped up security cooperation with Kazakhstan through defense industry exports, education and training of Kazakh military personnel in Turkey and joint military drills, its security cooperation is no match for Russia. In Kazakhstan, Russia rents an anti-ballistic missile testing range as well as a spaceport known as Baikonur Cosmodrome. Saparbekuly confirmed media reports that Kazakhstan has acquired Turkish ANKA armed drones from Turkish Aerospace, saying: “We reached an agreement in principle probably two months ago but still deliveries, financial matters etc. have not been completed.” On Tuesday, Tokayev appointed Alikhan Smailov as new prime minister and announced that around 2,000 CSTO peace-keeping forces will start to withdraw from Kazakhstan in two days time as the “main mission of the CSTO peacekeeping forces has been successfully completed,” adding the withdrawal process will take “no more than 10 days.” The Turkish Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, announced Tuesday that Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will travel to China on Wednesday. “It would be appropriate to see in Cavusoglu’s visit an attempt to tamp down concerns, or narratives, that the events in Kazakhstan were a product of pan-Turkist agitation, as some in China have intimated,” Outzen said. Turkey can also explain to Beijing that the Organization of Turkic States does not threaten Chinese interests, he said. Ogul Tuna, a researcher of post-Soviet studies at University of California, Irvine said that Cavusoglu’s upcoming visit to China can be an effort to balance Russia’s move as well as to reassure the Chinese that Ankara does not have a Pan-Turkist agenda.

Turkey helps to deter a Russian invasion of Azerbaijan

JAMI News, January 11, 2022, Op-ed: How does Turkey-Azerbaijan military alliance fit into Russia’s demands for NATO?, https://jam-news.net/op-ed-how-does-turkey-azerbaijan-military-alliance-fit-into-russias-demands-for-nato/

With regard to the expansion of NATO’s influence to the east, Russia calls the post-Soviet space its “red line”. However, Azerbaijan is actively cooperating with Turkey, a NATO member, in the military field. Turkey and Azerbaijan created a military alliance, which is enshrined in the declaration signed in 2021 in Shusha (Shushi). A vicious circle in Azerbaijan: electoral violations and belated decisions of the ECHR CSTO Security Council meeting: threat to Kazakhstan or the CSTO? According to the Shusha Declaration, signed on June 15, 2021, Azerbaijan and Turkey enter a military alliance. The document indicates the obligation of the parties of mutual military assistance in case of danger to sovereignty and territorial integrity. Azerbaijan and Turkey agree on mutual military assistance A declaration of alliance between Azerbaijan and Turkey has been signed in the city of Shusha (Armenian Shushi) liberated as a result of the second Karabakh war In addition, Turkey and Azerbaijan are conducting planned joint military exercises on the territory of both countries. The said declaration does not exclude the establishment of Turkish military bases on the territory of Azerbaijan. The Turkish army is the second most powerful army in NATO. During the Geneva talks between Russia and NATO, Moscow put forward a demand for the alliance not to extend its influence over the post-Soviet space, including the countries of the Caucasus. How can cooperation with a NATO member affect Azerbaijan’s relations with Russia? JAMnews addressed this question to the political observer Agshin Kerimov. “Russia’s demands are a clear threat” Since 1997, NATO has expanded its political geography in such a way that would have Russia surrounded in Eastern Europe. Russia’s concern stems from the fact that NATO is practically ‘under its nose’, and the situation itself is developing according to the Cold War scenario. The Ukrainian issue has brought the already turbulent, mutually zealous relationship to extreme escalation. Since 2004, when the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia became NATO members, enraged Russia has been rapidly expanding its military capabilities and has repeatedly conducted military maneuvers along its western borders. But despite Russia’s strategic and military advantage over the Baltic states, the Kremlin will not succeed in subordinating them to its political will for the simple reason that even during the Soviet era, this region was distinguished by its aggressiveness towards Russia. After the region came under NATO’s zone of influence, the expansion of the North Atlantic alliance to other post-Soviet countries became a “red line” for the Kremlin, and the question of Ukraine exacerbates the situation even more. For the same reason, Russia cannot stomach Georgia’s aspirations to join NATO; Moscow’s rhetoric is not any softer on this issue either. Russia demands from neighboring countries to clarify the boundaries of participation in NATO programs with integration into this Western alliance. This is an obvious threat. “Russia is trying to pull Baku into its orbit” As for Azerbaijan, Russia is trying to drag Baku into its orbit. Strategists of the Azerbaijani state understand the futility of this path, but are also trying to pursue a policy aimed at appeasing the Kremlin’s anger. Ultimately, this meets the interests of both the West and Moscow. Despite the fact that our region is now going through a post-war period, the principle of balance in Azerbaijan’s foreign policy has not been significantly violated. The West plays an important role in facilitating moments of Azerbaijan’s closeness to the Kremlin. During the second Karabakh war, Azerbaijan did not receive support from Western countries, with the exception of Great Britain. Baku predicted this in advance, and, therefore, took advantage of the tandem of Ankara and Moscow. “Azerbaijan is Turkey’s “red line” Naturally, the Kremlin’s warnings against NATO are also related to Azerbaijan, a country that has deepened cooperation with the North Atlantic alliance. At the moment, the Azerbaijani government is acting very carefully. Despite all this, the presence of the Turkish factor plays an important role in repelling any aggression. In this sense, the voicing of some open threats against Azerbaijan from Russia is associated with the factor of Turkey. The signing of the Shusha Declaration was an integral part of preventive measures, and it was very timely. This declaration itself is a continuation of the agreement signed between the two countries in 2010, and in fact can be called a document that creates new instruments for the post-war period. In addition, Azerbaijan and Turkey periodically conduct joint military exercises, and the Azerbaijani army is increasing its power. Perhaps the Kremlin has its own unspoken plans for Azerbaijan. But you shouldn’t take them seriously. Russia will not want to spoil relations with Turkey. And Azerbaijan is the same “red line” for Turkey. The most effective instrument in the hands of Russia is the peacekeepers deployed on the territory of Azerbaijan, and in this matter Baku does not find adequate support from Ankara. Despite all that has been said, Baku is convinced that Ankara, together with the Azerbaijani authorities, is trying to achieve the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Karabakh.

Turkey provides important conflict mediation, including over Kazakhastan and the Ukraine. It’s membership in NATO makes it a unique negotiator

Nur Ozkan Erbay, January 6, 2022, Turkish foreign policy is starting 2022 at a fast and sharp pace, https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/news-analysis/turkish-foreign-policy-is-starting-2022-at-a-fast-and-sharp-pace

With the increased diplomatic traffic in the last quarter of 2021, it has become clear which areas Turkey will focus on to achieve tangible gains in foreign policy in 2022. In particular, Turkey, which has started the process of normalization with several countries on both a bilateral and regional level, seems intent to continue these steps in the new year. Ankara has been looking for ways to create common solutions in line with its win-win strategy despite differences of opinion on bilateral relations and regional issues with important partners such as Russia, the United States and the European Union. On the one hand, Turkey’s strategic approach, which continues to seek regional alliances, should be evaluated within the steps of normalization with the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and Armenia, especially in the last quarter of 2021. On the other hand, it would not be a surprise to say that Turkey, which continues to act as a mediator in global and regional crises as well as a critical member of NATO, will be much more active in helping to calm crises in 2022. Therefore, it would be useful to analyze the meetings of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu to find clues and follow their footsteps to make pointed assessments for the new year. Erdoğan conducted his first telephone conversation of 2022 with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, over the weekend. Erdoğan evaluated regional issues and international developments, especially in the Caucasus, Syria and Libya, which will continue to be on the agenda of Turkey and Russia in the new year. A statement by the Presidential Communications Office said that both leaders would maintain their decisiveness and commitment to promoting cooperation between Turkey and Russia in all areas during the meeting, while the Kremlin statement also said that Russia’s proposals for various security guarantees to the United States and NATO were discussed. In another interesting development, Çavuşoğlu held a meeting over the phone with his U.S. counterpart, Antony Blinken, on Tuesday. The main topic was the tension between Russia and NATO over Ukraine. During the meeting, the developments in Turkey-U.S. bilateral relations, the border crisis between Sudan and Ethiopia, the normalization process and the revitalization of strategic mechanism in the Caucasus and the Russian-Ukrainian tension were discussed before the upcoming NATO and OSCE gatherings, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The statement of the U.S. State Department regarding the meeting also said that the two ministers discussed developments in the Horn of Africa, as well as the appointment of a special envoy to discuss the Turkish-Armenian normalization process and efforts to deepen bilateral cooperation. Among the other important developments in the first days of the new year, Erdoğan announced that he would travel to Saudi Arabia in February. This will be his first visit to Saudi Arabia since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. In the same month, Erdoğan will also travel to Abu Dhabi to pay a visit to United Arab Emirates (UAE) Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), who visited Turkey after a long absence in November 2021. Meanwhile, regarding the normalization steps with the UAE, Çavusoglu said Abu Dhabi had submitted an offer on ground transportation and that Turkey was also considering warmly. Answering Daily Sabah’s question at the annual press conference, Çavuşoğlu also stated that UAE officials told Ankara that Turkey, Qatar and the UAE could operate the Kabul airport on a tripartite basis. As another remarkable step, following years of frozen ties, the neighboring countries of Turkey and Armenia have announced they seek to normalize relations amid efforts for regional integration and cooperation in the South Caucasus. Special envoys from Turkey and Armenia will hold the first round of talks aimed at normalizing ties in Moscow on Jan. 14, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, as the two countries work to mend ties after years of animosity. Armenia also announced that it is lifting an embargo on Turkish goods starting Jan. 1, as one of the first results of the process in addition to mutual flights recommencing between the two countries soon. In the light of all these developments, if these normalization steps form an important strategic dimension of Turkey’s foreign policy in 2022, the other step will be to form an important role for mediation that will aid in resolving regional and global crises. Çavuşoğlu also spoke over the phone with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday. According to the Foreign Ministry’s statement, Çavuşoğlu and Stoltenberg spoke to exchanged views ahead of the meeting of NATO foreign ministers and the NATO-Russia Council meeting, set for Jan. 12, amid rising tension over Ukraine and political turmoil in Kazakhstan. As another indication of the intense diplomatic traffic in Ankara, Çavuşoğlu on Thursday spoke over the phone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The two discussed the NATO-Russia council meeting, current developments in Kazakhstan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Caucasus. It will not be difficult to guess that Turkey will likely play an important mediating role in Russia-West tensions, as well as in the Ukraine and Kazakhstan case. Turkey, which has historical and cultural ties with these countries as well as being a NATO member, is in a unique, if not inevitable, position to mediate international and regional disputes. It is likely in the new year that not only the countries where normalization steps are ongoing but also NATO and the EU will knock on Turkey’s door much more in 2022, as is the case with Russia. Overall, the greatest strength of Turkish foreign policy in this period will be its flexibility in all these areas and countries, its inclusive approach and the fact that it respects the principle of multilateralism with sincerity and reliability.

Turkey undemocratic and won’t. cooperate with NATO

Cagaptay, 1-4, 22, Foreign Affairs, Erdogan’s End Game: Will He Undermine Turkish Democracy to Stay in Power? https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2022-01-04/erdogans-end-game

Over the past few months, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has looked increasingly desperate. He has stepped up his repression of critics and political opponents, including, most recently, Metin Gurcan, a founding member of the opposition Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), who was arrested in November on espionage charges. He has threatened to expel diplomats from the United States and some of Turkey’s NATO allies. And as his popularity at home has nosedived, he has embarked on a reckless experiment to lower interest rates amid already high inflation, a policy that has pitched the country into economic turmoil. Meanwhile, he faces an emboldened—and increasingly united—opposition that for the first time poses a direct threat to his rule. The shift has been dramatic. For much of the past two decades, first as prime minister between 2003 and 2014 and then as president since 2014, Erdogan has seemed invincible. Bringing new prosperity to Turkey’s middle classes, he has pushed his Justice and Development Party (AKP) to victory in more than a dozen nationwide elections. He has weathered wars on his doorstep and, in 2016, an attempted coup. Styling himself as a new sultan, he has gained sweeping control over the judiciary, the media, the police, and other institutions of the state and civil society, even as he has ruthlessly cracked down on political opponents. In recent years, however, Erdogan’s authoritarian populism has lost its magic. Since the coup attempt, his government has become increasingly paranoid, going after not only suspected coup plotters but also members of the democratic opposition and subsequently arresting tens of thousands of people and forcing more than 150,000 academics, journalists, and others out of their jobs on suspicion of ties to the coup or simply for standing up to Erdogan. And his growing willingness to meddle in elections—including a bungled effort to reverse the outcome of Istanbul’s 2019 mayoral election—has galvanized the opposition. Now, with his support drastically eroding, the leader of the oldest democracy and biggest economy between Italy and India faces a reckoning: in 18 months’ time, Turkey will hold a presidential election that Erdogan is very unlikely to win. And because of his long legacy of corruption and abuse of power, he could well be prosecuted if ousted. It seems clear that Erdogan will try to do everything he can to stay in office, including undermining a fair vote, disregarding the result, or even fomenting a January 6–like insurrection. The urgent challenge confronting the country, then, is how to engineer a transfer of power that does not threaten the foundations of Turkish democracy itself, potentially sending shock waves of instability beyond the country’s borders into Europe and the Middle East. DEMOCRACY DIVERTED When he came to power in 2003, Erdogan was greeted as a reformer who would build and strengthen the country’s democratic institutions. At first, he and the AKP seemed to deliver on those promises. He improved access to services, such as health care, and delivered a decade of low unemployment and strong economic growth. Under Erdogan, Turkey became a majority middle-class society for the first time. He also expanded some freedoms, notably offering some minority language rights to Turkey’s Kurds. For awhile, these policies made Erdogan popular both at home and abroad. Domestically, he built a base of adoring supporters, who were mostly conservative, rural, working, lower-middle-class voters who reliably voted for the AKP in election after election. Meanwhile, his government was held up by the United States and Europe as a model of Muslim liberal democracy, a country that was seriously considered for membership in the European Union. But before long, Erdogan began to show far more authoritarian tendencies. In 2008, he unleashed the so-called Ergenekon case, a sweeping and largely inconclusive investigation into Turkey’s “deep state” in which more than 140 people were charged with plotting a coup against the democratically elected government. In fact, it quickly became clear that Erdogan—with help from the cleric Fethullah Gulen, the leader of the Gulen movement and an ally at the time, whose followers in the police, media, and judiciary helped concoct evidence targeting Erdogan’s democratic opponents—was attempting to root out the secularists who had long controlled state institutions. In his second decade in office, Erdogan resorted to harsher tactics to maintain power. In 2013, he used force to crack down on the Gezi protests, in which millions of antigovernment protesters took to the streets in Istanbul and other Turkish cities. After the protests, the government tightened the screws on civil society, and the space for political activism narrowed. Then, following the 2016 coup attempt, Erdogan used a prolonged state of emergency to further repress perceived threats to his rule. He launched a sweeping retribution campaign against his former allies in the Gulen movement, purging thousands of alleged and known Gulenists from government posts and throwing them in jail. And they were joined by growing numbers of socialists, social democrats, the Alevis (a liberal Muslim sect), liberals, leftists, Turkish and Kurdish nationalists, centrists, and even some conservatives opposed to Erdogan’s strong-arm populism. Meanwhile, Erdogan began to pivot away from Turkey’s longstanding ties to Europe and the United States. In 2013, he blamed President Barack Obama for General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s coup in Egypt, aligning himself increasingly with political Islamist forces in the Middle East, especially the Muslim Brotherhood. Although they were initially on opposite sides of the Syrian civil war, Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin also eventually entered an entente. Following Putin’s outreach to him in the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt, Putin agreed to allow Turkey to go after the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which the United States had relied on to fight the Islamic State (or ISIS), and Erdogan committed to buying the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system. By 2020, Erdogan faced tough U.S. sanctions for the Russian defense agreement, and the seven-decade alliance between Washington and Ankara was entering its greatest crisis in recent memory.

Millions dead within minutes of a Russia-US nuclear war

ICAN Campaign, September 18, 2019, https://www.icanw.org/new_study_on_us_russia_nuclear_war, New Study on US-Russia nuclear war: 91.5 million casualties in first few hours

34.1 million people could die, and another 57.4 million could be injured, within the first few hours of the start of a nuclear war between Russia and the United States triggered by one low-yield nuclear weapon, according to a new simulation by researcher’s at Princeton‘s Science and Global Security programme. But that’s not all. The overall death toll would be even higher due to long-term consequences of a nuclear war, including radioactive fallout and global cooling of the Earth’s atmosphere, researchers add. Even a limited nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan could put one billion people at risk of starvation and another 1.3 billion at risk of severe food insecurity due to global cooling, according to a 2013 study by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The Princeton simulation, ironically entitled “Plan A,” comes as the United States works to develop brand new low-yield nuclear weapons, despite the opposition of leading Democratic members of Congress, and demonstrates that even lower-yield nuclear weapons can have devastating consequences. The researchers used independent assessments of current U.S. and Russian nuclear force postures, including the number of warheads deployed and their yields, war plans and targets to create the simulation. Equally alarming as the casualty toll of this nuclear war simulation is the growing probability that it becomes a reality. “The risk of nuclear war has increased dramatically in the past two years as the United States and Russia have abandoned long-standing nuclear arms control treaties, started to develop new kinds of nuclear weapons and expanded the circumstances in which they might use nuclear weapons,” wrote the Princeton researchers on the project website. “‘Plan A’ shows that there is no sane plan once a nuclear weapon is launched,” said Alicia Sanders-Zakre, Policy and Research Coordinator at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. “A better plan is to reject nightmare nuclear scenarios and support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”

Turkey-NATO Daily

Despite any Russia ties, Turkey is a strong NATO partner

Turkey committed to NATO

Turkey-Israel relations have improved

Turkey not successfully negotiating the Russia-Ukraine dispute

Lack of democracy distances Turkey from the West

Turkish mediation can solve the Ukraine crisis

Russia does not want Turkey’s mediation

Russia does not want Turkey’s mediation

Turkey supported efforts to train Georgian forces and to oppose the illegal annexation of Crimea

Turkey more supportive of NATO in the Ukraine than Germany

Turkey buried troubles with NATO to support the Ukraine

On-balance, Turkey has been a good ally and it controls access to the Black Sea

Russia and China have formed an anti-Democratic alliance

Turkey will join Russia if abandoned by NATO

Answers to: S-400 purchase from Russia: The US abandoned Turkey’s Turkey has tried to negotiate a solution

Turkey buried troubles with NATO to support the Ukraine

On-balance, Turkey has been a good ally and it controls access to the Black Sea

Turkey balancing relations with Russia but siding with the West

Russia not interested in Turkey’s conflict mediation

Turkey has committed genocide in Syria, and killing the Kurds has increased ISIS’ strength

Turkey will join Russia if abandoned by NATO

Turkey has committed genocide in Syria, and killing the Kurds has increased ISIS’ strength

Turkey will join Russia if abandoned by NATO

NATO praising Turkey for its role in the Ukraine

Ukraine war will kill 85,000 people and trigger a flood of 5 million refugees

Turkey will support NATO over Russia on the Ukraine

Turkey mediated talks fail

New Turkey-Ukraine drone deal and free trade agreement

Turkey supports NATO on the Ukraine and opposes Russia on key issues

Turkey aligned with NATO on core issues

Russia is a threat a threat to Europe, NATO not currently prepared

US-Turkey-NATO relationship is zero-sum: Losing Turkey means they go to Russia

All of their evidence is old, Turkey is a strong NATO member

Ukraine invasion results in a supply chain crisis and a food crisis

Turkey supports deterrence against Russia now

Turkey supporting NATO on the Ukraine

Turkey’s NATO membership on desirable, no strong Russia ties

Turkey no longer has a security relationship with Russia, working as a NATO member

Turkey will turn to Russia without NATO

Turkey will negotiate an end to the Ukraine crisis

Turkey’s role as a NATO ally is on-balance desirable

Russia will cooperate with Turkey on security issues if NATO does not

Turkey committed to NATO

Turkey supports NATO enlargement and the NATO’s role in Afghanistan

Turkey provides significant support to the European Response Force

Lack of democracy needs to be balanced with other needs

US military assets in both Turkey and Greece means there can’t be a conflict between the two

Turkey would ally with Russia if it wasn’t in NATO

Turkey lifted its veto of the Baltic States defense plan

Turkey supporting Baltic state security

The West should continue to work with Turkey

Turkey is undermining, not strengthening, NATO’s Black Sea defense

Turkey’s sale of a drone to the Ukraine may trigger a Russian invasion of the Ukraine and won’t change the power balance

Turkey successfully challenged Russia in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict

Turkey will work to diffuse the Ukraine conflict but side with NATO if push comes to shove

Turkey destroying human rights

Turkey’s provision of drones to the Ukraine risks war and won’t deter war

Turkey strengthening its relationship with Russia and becoming undemocratic

Turkish invasion of Syrian has undermined US efforts against ISIS

Russia could easily defeat drones provided by Turkey

Russia can offset the TB12 drone and its provision could be used to justify an invasion

Turkey working to resolve the Ukraine crisis and secure the Black Sea

Turkey working to resolve the Ukraine crisis and secure the Black Sea

Even if Erdogan is more authoritarian, this is transitional and Turkey is a democracy

Kazakhstan proves turkey fails at regional peacekeeping

Turkey helps to deter a Russian invasion of Azerbaijan

Turkey provides important conflict mediation, including over Kazakhastan and the Ukraine. It’s membership in NATO makes it a unique negotiator

Turkey undemocratic and won’t. cooperate with NATO

Millions dead within minutes of a Russia-US nuclear war

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