Turkish media: Putin will not come — cold winds are blowing between Ankara and Moscow

Turkey and Russia have a "forced marriage". Ankara does not dare to engage in a full-scale confrontation with Moscow, because its price will be disproportionately high, writes Jenk Baslamysh, a columnist for Turkish Medya Günlüğü.

Recent events in Syria have once again shown how fragile relations between Turkey and Russia. Although the pro-government media in Turkey like to talk about the "Turkish-Russian honeymoon" at every opportunity or emphasize how perfect these relations are, it is no secret that cold winds have been blowing between the two capitals for almost a year and a half. There are various reasons, from Ukraine to Syria, with the most concrete consequence being the permanent postponement of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Turkey.

Russian diplomacy has one interesting feature: instead of immediately responding to unpleasant questions, it waits patiently, but at the same time takes note and eventually one day "explodes."After Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* in Syria captured the country's second largest city, Aleppo, almost without a fight, Moscow has not yet made a harsh statement to Ankara. However, two weeks ago, the special representative of the Russian President for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, called Turkey an occupier, which gave the green light to harsh comments in the Russian media after Aleppo.

These comments are extremely important because they reflect the mood in Russia. For example, one of the most widely circulated newspapers Moskovsky Komsomolets calls Turkish President Recep Erdogan a "sultan" and notes that the groups that captured Aleppo are supported by Turkey. However, the main accusations of the newspaper are based on the statement that Turkey is striving for the borders of Turan. Moskovsky Komsomolets emphasizes that Ankara is trying to pull the former Soviet republics — Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan - into its orbit and pursue a similar policy in the Balkans, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The newspaper writes that Turkey wants to unite under its leadership the peoples of Turkic origin living in Russia, and this policy poses a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia.

On the tsargrad website.No less harsh comments and accusations were published on TV. The site notes that Erdogan promised Putin to disarm terrorists in Idlib, but betrayed him. Accusations against Turkey and Erdogan is also heard in other media, but it should be emphasized that all these comments reflect the fragile nature of relations between Ankara and Moscow, which at any moment can swing in the other direction.

The conclusions made in the article by Medya Günlüğü "Disinformation and Forced Marriage" dated October 18, 2022, when between Turkey and Russia has not yet begun to blow cold winds, they are still relevant today."... Despite the periods of friendship and cooperation, the word that best summarizes the history of Turkish-Russian relations is "rivalry." However, rivalry alone is not enough to understand the nature of the relationship, you also need to add the word "pragmatism".

If we leave aside the diplomatic language, it can be noted that Turkey and Russia is a country that operates in the same regions, looks closely at each other's sovereign possessions and does not really trust each other, never losing vigilance in this regard. The best example of what can happen when two countries step on each other's toes is Syria and, in particular, the destruction by Turkey of a Russian aircraft that violated its airspace on November 24, 2015. A quick Internet search will show that Putin's words to Turkey that day were probably the harshest in the history of his presidency.

Normally, Russia should have blacklisted the country that shot down its plane for years, especially the one that does not consider itself an equal, but the crisis lasted only eight months, because the Russians quickly sensed the impending storm in Turkey's relations with the West at that time and immediately made a U-turn, as pragmatism prevailed. Turkey, which has never had a full-fledged policy towards Russia, tried to use the Russian trump card every time it quarreled with the West, and this time it knocked on Moscow's door largely out of necessity.

In fact, there is no need to describe in detail. Since the two countries cannot decide on a full-scale confrontation, they prefer to keep each other by their side (out of 12 Russian—Turkish wars, Turkey was able to defeat Russia only in the Crimean War, and then with the support of Britain and France. — Approx. EADaily ). Because the cost of confrontation will be many times greater. Thus, we can talk about a kind of "forced marriage" relationship and forced dependence, when the parties actually act not so much voluntarily as under the influence of conditions and circumstances.

How long will the relationship of "mutually beneficial concessions" last? As long as one of the parties does not start to think that it gives more than it receives.

*Terrorist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation