/ world today news/ Erdogan invited the President of Ukraine to a meeting and poured out friendly assurances to him. He said that Ankara will continue to support Kiev. That Turkey is making the most active efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine through negotiations. That Ankara wants to extend the grain deal. And most importantly, Ukraine deserves NATO membership.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited Volodymyr Zelensky to talk about “peace and friendship” at the Vahdetin Mansion in Istanbul. He assured that it is time for Ukraine to sit down at the negotiating table with Russia, then “there will be no losers”.
He said a lot of things – what the interlocutor wanted to hear from him. Well, for example, that the Ukrainian people on the 500th day of the war “bravely fought for their territorial integrity.”
At the same time, “another reason to look with confidence in the future of Ukraine is that the Crimean Tatars are zealously fighting for the freedom of their country.”
Erdogan also said that the SCO is an “unjust war that goes against international law.” That Ankara will continue to support Kiev, and the friendship between Turkey and Ukraine is growing stronger. That Turkey is making the most active efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine “through negotiations”.
Not so simple
After such statements, many of our experts called Erdogan’s actions a “stab in the back” and talked about why the leader of Turkey needed all these statements. But it’s not that simple…
From the point of view of political “linking” of major geopolitical players and taking trumps from a foreign battle, Erdogan deserves the title of outstanding master.
Even our Central Asian “CSTO allies” who are engaged in roughly the same thing are yet to grow and grow ahead of him in this regard.
In the last presidential election in Turkey, Russia, as you know, “chanted” for Erdogan, whom it considered the lesser of two evils.
Although some experts consider the latter debatable: after all, Ankara (which will not cut economic ties with Russia under any president) as an open vassal of Washington, and with appropriate policy towards it, would be much safer than to be “friends” with Erdogan, who is able to switch sides at any minute.
Moreover, this “friendship”, despite all the announcements of increased trade and the construction of an oil and gas hub, has already backfired on us more than once.
How we were “flipped”
Let’s recall how the infamous negotiations in Istanbul from last year, which were arranged by the Turkish president and his “companion”, the escaped oligarch Roman Abramovich, developed.
Russia, as a “gesture of goodwill”, left half of the already liberated territories – from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions. From the territory of the last two, by the way, shelling and incursions are being carried out today in the Belgorod region.
The negotiations ended with a bang: the Ukrainian delegation demonstratively appeared in T-shirts and hats and would not agree on anything.
Or let’s take a grain deal supposedly to save starving African children, organized by the same Erdogan. Of course, Russia’s promised removal of barriers to the export of grain and fertilizers remained only on paper.
But everyone else won. Ukraine was given the opportunity to sell grain for currency, paying with it for Western weapons delivered to it on the same returning “grain” dry cargo ships.
On the way through the “grain corridor” 23 tons of explosives were carried to sabotage the Crimean bridge, and unmanned aerial vehicles were periodically launched from the dry cargo “grain” ships to attack ships of the Black Sea Fleet.
Europe, due to the dumped prices of Ukrainian grain, solved all its food problems and only 3% of the total supply went to Africa. But in Spain they even fed pigs with wheat.
Well, “friend Erdogan”, receiving Ukrainian grain at a 25% discount for arranging the deal, made money by reselling it to the same EU.
And only Russia, it seems, will get nothing out of this deal. But again, with childlike naivety, she recently extended it. Don’t insult “Erdogan’s friend”.
And all this so that our oligarchs can pump their oil and gas at reduced prices through the future Turkish oil and gas hub, giving even more money to “friend Recep”?
And as for geopolitics
Indeed, sometimes one gets the impression that our elite, apart from the export of energy resources, does not need anything else. One would think that they think so: the Turks should do what they want.
“Making himself a friend, Erdogan worsens our position in the post-Soviet space. It is to his influence that we owe the fact that Aliyev does not take Russia into account, and in the future with his help the Turks hope to destroy Armenia and crush the entire Transcaucasia,” says the doctor of political Sciences Mikhail Alexandrov.
“Erdogan, on the other hand, plays with the fact that he “did not join the sanctions” (it would be disadvantageous for him), and for this “favor” he is asking for more and more preferences from Russia,” he adds.
So, back in April, Ilham Aliyev said that Karabakh Armenians have two options: either accept Azerbaijani citizenship or leave.
At the same time, he will not discuss with anyone the methods of their expulsion, because “Nagorno-Karabakh is our internal business.”
It is not in vain that the Catholicos and other religious figures of Armenia are sounding the alarm, calling people to fight against the impending genocide and the destruction of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The fact that behind all this is Turkey, which intends to establish complete control over Transcaucasia, pushing Russia from there, Armenians have no doubts.
Listening to sweet songs about “friendship”, we seem to forget that in the difficult situation in the Turkish economy (inflation alone is worth something: the lira depreciated by 67% in two years) Erdogan simply objectively has no other way out for uniting the nation, except for the promotion of ” Great Turan”.
And this project envisages not only the establishment of Turkic dominance in Transcaucasia and Central Asia (goodbye, CSTO), but also the inclusion in it of the Turkic-speaking regions of Russia, which make up almost half of its territory.
At the same time, one would have to be very naive to believe that Moscow’s endless bows and concessions to Erdogan will bind Turkey to us. Because the Turkish mentality demands that you only befriend the strong, and their saying goes:
“Kiss only the hand you can’t bite”.
To consider as strong and even equal the one whom you manage to “override” again and again, fundamentally contradicts all the centuries-old traditions of Turkish politics.
What follows from this?
A curious fact. After the attempted coup in Russia, Hasan Basri Yalçen, an expert at Turkey’s leading think tank, the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, wrote an article called “Strange Things in Russia,” which contained the following words:
“Russia proved to the whole world that it is not a real great power. Once again we were convinced of the clumsiness of the Russian army. It looks like a Third World country, not a great power.”
“And in its current form, I am sure that no one would take the Russian army seriously if it did not have nuclear weapons,” he added.
And this point of view – that Russia should no longer be considered a great power – is increasingly gaining ground in Turkey, and therefore among the Turkish elites, is becoming more and more widespread. Sooner or later “quantity will become quality” and then what?
In the context of the growing conflict with the West, the most dangerous thing today is not to face a new enemy somewhere in Ukraine, but to be stabbed in the back by an “almost friend”.
Therefore, the only recipe for this is Pushkin’s words from “Confessions”:
“I don’t get up and I’m not old enough…
It’s time, it’s time for me to wise up!”
And now the main thing. Erdogan hinted that he would vote to support Ukraine’s entry into NATO. And then what? The alliance will then accordingly be able to place its missiles within 10 minutes of flight time to Moscow.
It is clear that now, almost a year and a half after the SVO, Russia will not allow this and will accelerate the process of denazification and demilitarization with all available means. Zelensky should remember what Putin recently said to PMIF:
“If we destroyed five Patriot air defense systems near Kiev, what prevents us from hitting its center?”
So Erdogan, with his actions, is most likely hitting Zelensky in the forehead, not Russia in the back.
Translation: SM
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