TURKEY WALKS A TIGHTROPE IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CRISIS / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

Turkey Walks a Tightrope in the Russia-Ukraine Crisis

Ankara is trying to keep its options open.

By: Hilal Khashan

The war in Ukraine caught Turkey unprepared. 

It came amid Turkey’s grinding economic crisis, currency meltdown and attempts to reformulate its regional policy, in part by restoring ties with countries like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Israel. 

But Turkey’s relations with the West are also in need of a reboot. 

The war has put Ankara in a challenging position, caught ill-prepared to deal with Russia’s resurgence as a global power and its impact on Turkey’s own assertion as a Black Sea heavyweight. 

Its economic ties with Moscow have hampered its ability to express its opposition to the war and Russia’s objectives there – namely, to restore the status quo ante, shattered by NATO’s eastward expansion, and to renew imperial Russia’s territorial hold over the Black Sea basin, an area that was under Ottoman control until the late 17th century.

Turkey’s Dilemma

Despite being a historical adversary of Russia and supporter of Ukraine, Turkey finds itself in a complicated position. 

It has developed significant military and economic relations with Kyiv. 

The two countries established the Black Sea Shield for aviation industries, and Ukraine produces the engines for Turkey’s ATAK-2 attack helicopters, scheduled to become operational in 2023. 

But Ankara also cooperates with Russia on vital economic issues and security arrangements in Libya, Syria and Azerbaijan. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has worked to repair relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin after years of tension, and in 2017, Turkey purchased the Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile system. 

The trade balance between the two countries favors Russia, whose 2020 exports to Turkey neared $18 billion, compared to $5 billion in imports, which included 10 million metric tons of Russian wheat. 

Moscow also invested in huge Turkish energy projects, including the Akkuyu nuclear plant in Mersin and the TurkStream pipeline, which will transport natural gas to Turkey and Europe.

Erdogan even offered to mediate the Russia-Ukraine crisis – though Putin seemed uninterested. 

Turkey didn’t want to see the conflict descend into an all-out war because it would require Erdogan to make choices that would reveal his government’s precarious position. 

Turkey worries about the crisis’ impact on its mutual understanding with Russia on the South Caucasus, Syria and Libya. 

Erdogan also doesn’t want to jeopardize Turkey’s vital economic ties with Russia by coming down too hard on Moscow, fearing the U.S. could reach a deal with the Kremlin without Turkey. 

Ankara doesn’t trust its Western allies who, for years, ignored its interests and national security concerns, even expressing outright hostility. 

Turkey is thus crafting an ad hoc foreign policy, one that expresses solidarity with Kyiv and condemns the unjustified aggression against it while at the same time keeps its options open. 

It would be risky for Turkey to, say, close the Bosporus Strait to Russian naval vessels per the 1936 Montreux Convention, as requested by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. 

Even in war, the convention entitles Russia to return its ships from the Mediterranean to their home bases in the Black Sea. 

Turkey, however, decided on Tuesday, apparently after consultation with the U.S., to restrict movement of warships through the Bosporus and Dardanelles for all countries. 

It will only allow vessels to return to their bases in the Black Sea – meaning Russia cannot bring its Baltic and Pacific fleets to the sea.

Russia’s Threat

Turkey plays a critical role in counterbalancing Russia’s influence in the Black Sea basin, the Caucasus and Central Asia. 

In the Caucasus, it sided with Azerbaijan in its successful campaign against Armenia in the recent Nagorno-Karabakh war. 

In the Black Sea basin, its partnership with Ukraine has grown significantly since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, which Ankara condemned. 

In fact, after a 2020 meeting with Zelenskiy in Ankara, Erdogan called for an end to Russia’s occupation of the peninsula and the reinstatement of Kyiv’s sovereignty over Donetsk and Luhansk. 

Their cooperation on the military front includes Turkey’s building of four corvettes for the Ukrainian navy and supplying other hardware, including cruise missiles and Bayraktar drones, which have proved effective in the fight for Donbass.

Turkey sees Russia’s expansion in the Black Sea basin – which also includes its seizure of Abkhazia from Georgia in 2008 – as extremely problematic. 

In the current Ukraine conflict, the Russians advanced in the Sea of Azov and nearly captured Kherson on the Black Sea coast. 

If Russia succeeds in becoming the dominant power there, it would end the balance of power with Turkey that has been in place since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. 

Turkey is thus bracing to become a minor Black Sea power if Russia prevails.

Still, Turkey was the only NATO country that managed to help Ukraine develop its military capabilities without instigating a confrontation with Moscow. 

The West should have perceived the extent of the Russian threat and seized the opportunity to channel more military assistance to Ukraine via Turkey – but it didn’t. 

For the U.S., the Black Sea is vital because of the six coastal states, three (Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria) are NATO members and two others (Ukraine and Georgia) are Western-friendly nations. 

Russia’s advances there weaken NATO and compromise its southern flank. 

The U.S. realizes that Turkey’s role in halting Russia’s encroachment is critical, so mending relations between Ankara and the West is essential. 

But Turkey’s neutrality in this conflict will irreversibly undermine the entire Western alliance.

Overhauling Turkey’s Foreign Policy

Most Western countries regard Turkey’s foreign policy objectives, especially in the eastern Mediterranean, as problematic. 

Even Ankara’s past secular governments experienced tensions with Western countries. 

Following Turkey’s invasion of Northern Cyprus in 1974, for example, the U.S. Congress imposed a three-and-a-half-year arms embargo on Turkey, despite its essential role in defending NATO’s southern flank. 

Ankara also has grievances against Washington, mostly because it supported Kurdish militias in northeastern Syria and did not repatriate Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of masterminding the 2016 failed coup. 

In 2015, NATO failed to back Turkey after it shot down a Russian fighter jet that violated its airspace. 

France dismissed the idea that NATO should defend Turkey against Russia, and many Western officials even demanded that Turkey be expelled from the alliance. 

Turkey’s improved relations with Russia upset the U.S., which removed Ankara from the F-35 fighter program and imposed sanctions on its defense industry after its purchase of S-400s.

Now NATO is demanding that Ankara fully endorse its anti-Russian policies, though the U.S. and its European allies were also uninterested in Turkey playing mediator between the two sides. 

They want Turkey to take an unequivocal position. 

It will be difficult for Turkey to resist demands to close its airspace to Russian aircraft, since most European countries have already done so. 

Even Switzerland has adopted the European Union’s sanctions on Russia, making it increasingly impossible for Turkey to claim neutrality in this conflict without inviting the wrath of the West.

Erdogan is still somewhat reluctant to stand against Russia because he sees Turkey as vulnerable and isolated in Europe. 

For years, Turkey failed to convince the West that it’s critically important to European security. 

It correctly predicted the Russian threat to Eastern Europe, which explains why it fostered close cooperation with Ukraine. 

It can play a decisive role in checking Russia’s intrusion in the Black Sea basin but still must work closely with NATO.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will probably shelve or at least postpone U.S. plans to withdraw from Europe and the Middle East to focus on the Pacific. 

Putin’s ultimate objective is to pressure NATO to withdraw from the 14 countries that joined the alliance after 1997. 

If Russia prevails in the war, it will reshape the entire continent – an unacceptable outcome for NATO. 

Putin’s expansionist Black Sea policy will reorient Turkey’s policy toward the West. 

Ultimately, the two sides need each other.