► “Turkey is not completely neutral”
Marc Pieriniformer European Union Ambassador to Turkey and researcher at Carnegie Europe.
Turkey claims that it is perfectly neutral between Ukraine and Russia. The reality is that it is not completely, neither in the eyes of kyiv, nor in the eyes of Moscow. Russia has sold long-range missiles to Turkey, is building a nuclear power plant there and is supplying it with gas. At the same time, Ankara provides kyiv with armed Bayraktar TB2 drones, effective against columns of armored vehicles, but not decisive since Russia has massively used cruise missiles and long-range artillery.
To restore his image with NATO and respond to domestic political issues, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has every interest in playing a visible role in the conflict. The organization of a “grain corridor” in the Black Sea is nevertheless an extremely difficult operation, both technically, because the approaches to Ukrainian ports have to be cleared, and politically, because of the lack of confidence in the commitments made by the Kremlin. Turkey would like to succeed in launching this operation on its own, but it cannot do so without international support, that is to say, ideally, within the framework of a United Nations Security Council resolution legally binding Russia to an agreement on grain exports from Ukrainian ports.
Turkey does not apply the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union against Russia but, under the Montreux Convention, it has closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to warships.
If Vladimir Putin imposed the lifting of this ban as a condition, it would be a real dilemma for Turkey because it would considerably increase the military risk for Ukraine, in particular for Odessa. Moreover, this closure is not without ambiguity because it did not prevent the passage of merchant ships carrying military equipment from Syria to Russian ports in the Black Sea or stolen Ukrainian cereals in the direction of the Mediterranean.
Another factor in the complex equation between Putin and Erdogan, will Russia give the green light to a new Turkish military offensive in Syria against the Syrian Kurds in two areas under the control of Moscow and the Damascus regime? This would allow Putin to extract concessions from his Turkish counterpart.
As a country bordering the Black Sea, Turkey plays a welcome role of facilitator but, between the display and the effective realization, there is a long way which is not crossed yet. The domestic political dimension is obvious, when polls give the Turkish president beaten by three of the possible candidates of the opposition coalition. For its part, Russia is trying to obtain in exchange a partial lifting of the sanctions. It’s a very complicated multi-grant game.
► “Turkey voluntarily adopts a neutral position”
Nicolas Monceau, lecturer at the University of Bordeaux and specialist in Turkey.
Many observers have underlined the balancing act of Turkey, which supports Ukraine on the one hand and which, at the same time, manages its relations with Russia. This is particularly linked to Turkey’s desire, which dates back some twenty years, to impose itself as a facilitator for the resolution of conflicts and to strengthen its status as a regional power. Unlike countries in the European Union or the United States, Turkey voluntarily adopts a neutral position, as was already the case in 2008, when Russia attacked Georgia.
Turkey would also have nothing to gain by putting itself at odds with Russia, with which it maintains close relations on several levels. This explains, among other things, why it has not put in place the sanctions regime provided for by the European Union, nor closed its airspace to Russian aviation.
Even if Ankara has been able to diversify its partnerships for hydrocarbon imports, it remains very dependent on Russia for energy, especially for gas. Turkey is also a top tourist destination for Russian nationals, representing a significant economic windfall. When, in 2015, Ankara shot down a Russian bomber in its airspace, Russia applied economic sanctions against Turkey from which it had suffered, highlighting its vulnerability.
For similar reasons, Turkey cannot abandon its support for Ukraine, with which it has signed important partnerships, especially in the field of military cooperation. It sold drones used in the Donbass to Ukrainians, for example.
But today the main issue for Ankara is its position within NATO. She opposes the entry of Sweden and Finland, two countries she accuses of supporting Kurdish organizations deemed by her to be terrorists. At the same time, Turkey announced an operation in northern Syria against the Kurds. But it seems to me that this new military operation is not linked to the question of Ukraine and Turkey’s role as mediator. It is rather a telescoping of the calendar, even if we can estimate that there is a good opportunity for Ankara, in the current context, to move forward on this file.
In Western countries, this foreign policy, considered interventionist, and this desire to appear as an important player in the meditation of the Ukrainian crisis are often perceived as a means for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reunite his population, to exalt the nationalist feelings in the run-up to the presidential election of 2023, which will also be the year of the centenary of the Republic. But, beyond internal issues, it is in Turkey’s interest to appear impartial in order to secure its own relations on the international scene.