A NEW DIRECTION FOR RUSSIAN-TURKISH RELATIONS
By Sergei Markedonov, Special to Russia Profile
Russia Profile, Russia
Nov 1 2007
Can Russia Find a Friend in an Historic Enemy?
It is possible that as soon as in the next few years the Republic of
Turkey will become a new important foreign policy partner for Russia.
A significant "cooling" of the U.S.-Turkish relationship due to the
U.S. military campaign in Iraq as well as different approaches to
the future of Iraqi Kurdistan, along with continued debate in the
Turkish-European relationship over Turkey’s integration into the EU,
objectively push Ankara towards Moscow.
Experts traditionally see modern Turkey as the most pro-Western state
of the Islamic world. According to Turkish political scientist Chagri
Erkhan, "there are three main directions of Turkey’s foreign policy.
They are: the relationship with the EU, the relationship with the
United States and the relationship with Israel." Since 1953, the
Republic of Turkey has been a member of NATO and the most consistent
partner of the United States. The goal of being integrated into
Europe has also united practically all of the country’s mainstream
politicians. Even the leader of the Justice and Development Party,
Recep Erdogan, who first came to power in November 2002 and who is
considered to be a "systemic Islamist," expressed his support for the
pro-European vector of Turkey’s foreign policy. As renowned Turkey
expert Igor Torbakov has noted, it was during Edrogan’s era that the
"problem of European integration significantly overshadowed all of
Turkey’s other interests, including Ankara’s geopolitical ambitions
in post-Soviet Eurasia as a whole and in the Caucasus in particular."
However, with the start of the Iraq campaign, Ankara gave up its
unconditional support for the United States by refusing to open a
"Turkish front" for military operations. The phantom of Kurdistan
was too serious an irritant for Ankara since Iraqi Kurdistan has long
been a staging ground for Kurdish separatist operations against the
Turkish authorities. Now that Iraq has turned into an untenable state,
Turkey is even more concerned for its national security.
Ankara’s relationship with Washington may be very complicated, but
its relationship with the euro-bureaucrats from Brussels is far from
simple. On one hand, the EU keeps inviting Turkey to join; on the
other, Europe keeps holding it back. The decision by the EU to accept
Greek Cyprus for membership has played a particularly negative role
in this process. Turkey supported a referendum to unify the island,
but now the Greek Cypriots have no motivation for unification; they
have already been recognized by the European community and the Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus has little chance of being accepted by
the international community. This situation has resulted in Turkey
moving away from its pro-European outlook. The "euro-skepticism"
of Turkey’s elite only increased after several European countries,
including France and the Netherlands, demonstrated their aversion of
a forced integration of Turkey into the EU.
Just like Ankara, Russia today has a shortage of partners. Since
the start of the Iraq war in 2003, the Kremlin has been trying to
stand up to the United States, but in an unorganized way. First,
counteracting the "threat" of color revolutions practically became
part of Russia’s official foreign policy. According to the authors of
the theory of "sovereign democracy," such revolutions are initiated
by the United States and are a threat to Russia’s influence in
the CIS. Secondly, the Kremlin is trying to find some alternative
restraints and counterweights to Washington’s hegemony. Although
the efficiency of such searches is doubtful, attempts are made with
enviable regularity: in 2003, Russia proposed the Utopian idea of
forming a Moscow-Paris-Berlin axis; then, after this flop, Russia
increased its contacts with Tehran and Beijing, looking for an "Eastern
counterweight" to Western influence. Moscow became much more vigorous
in its interactions with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
seeing it as a kind of "Eastern NATO." At the beginning of 2006,
Russian authorities even admitted the necessity of negotiations with
Hamas, thus destroying all positive relations with Israel.
However, both Russia and Turkey have a long journey towards
a promising bilateral relationship. In the beginning of the
1990s, Moscow and Ankara accumulated a long and serious list of
contradictions. Russia and Turkey still have different views on
the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, during which
Turkey supported Azerbaijan. In 1993, the Armenia-Turkey border was
closed. An important role in the development of the Azeri-Turkish
relationship is played by military collaboration. Since 1996, Turkish
military advisers have worked in Azerbaijan on a regular basis;
Azerbaijani military specialists train in Turkey. At the same time,
Moscow has always emphasized the strategic nature of its relations
with Yerevan. For Ankara, the Karabakh conflict is about "Armenian
aggression," for Moscow it is an ethnic conflict that needs to be
resolved by political means.
The Russian-Turkish relationship was also significantly aggravated
by the "Chechen crisis." In 1995, a government headed by Necmettin
Erbakan, leader of the National Salvation Party, came to power
in Turkey. Erbakan and others in his party sympathized with the
Chechen separatists. Despite the fact that Erbakan’s government was
soon forced by the Turkish military to resign, a strong pro-Chechen
spirit remained in Turkish society. Organizations of the diasporas
of North Caucasian ethnicities were active in Turkish territory and
supported the separatists. In 1996, the Avrasya ferry was hijacked in
Turkey by men making pro-Chechen demands. In July 2000, Abdul Khalek
Chei, who was then the Minister of Relations with Turkic Republics,
compared Russia’s operations in the Caucasus to "Hitler’s actions
against Jews." It is important to remember, however, that there is
a Caucasian diaspora numbering 7 million people on Turkish territory.
Today many experts in both Russia and the West talk about the positive
role of "national diplomacy" and this factor has played a paramount
role in Russian-Turkish relations. The multilateral and intense
business relations between Russia and Turkey have caused Turkey to
develop a dependency on Russian money, and thus significantly adjust
its policy toward Russia. Another factor that has brought Moscow and
Ankara closer together was Russia’s refusal to support the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization
in Turkey and was supported by the Soviet Union. One of the problems
the two countries share is how to confront radical politicized Islam.
Although over the course of history Russia and Turkey have spent a
total of 44 years fighting 11 wars against each other, today there
is a significant rapprochement of the positions of these two rivals.
Putting this relationship to good use, however, is a completely
different question. If Russia tries to use Turkey as a "weak link" for
influencing the Western world and for correcting the Euro-dogmatism
and the extremes of the U.S. neo-con neo-imperialism, then such a
rapprochement can be seen as a positive factor. If this rapprochement
turns into real cooperation between the two countries, united by an
aversion for radical political Islam, it will also be a positive
achievement, because it will demonstrate that a country from the
Islamic East and a state with a multi-million member community of
Muslims stand together against religious extremism and terrorism. In
this case we could truly demonstrate (unlike in the case of Russia’s
friendship with Hamas) a multi-vector policy. If in the context of
this rapprochement Moscow initiates a more productive dialogue between
Turkey and Armenia, this will also become an important stabilization
factor.
However, it will be a completely different situation if Russia follows
the advice of its Eurasians and tries to draw Turkey into an axis
with Tehran. First of all, this idea will most likely be rejected by
Ankara and secondly, it would further marginalize Russia’s foreign
policy. In this case, Moscow will truly confirm its reputation as an
archaic political power that acts for only one reason: to spite the
United States.
Sergei Markedonov is the head of the Interethnic Relations Department
at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow.
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