Turkey: Putin's Open Door for Harming Western Interests
by Burak Bekdil • January 20, 2023 at 5:00 am
For Putin, Erdoğan's friendship is growing ever more important -- and vice versa.
Turkey has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, thereby throwing a lifeline to Putin. Turkish skies remain open to Russian airlines and its doors open to hundreds of thousands of Russians and their money. Turkish exports to Russia are surging. In July alone, exports to Russia shot up by a dizzying 75% year-on-year.
Russian cash helped plug the growing hole in Turkey's foreign currency reserves -- at a time when Erdoğan needs foreign money for the country's ailing economy before the presidential and parliamentary elections this June.
In March, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Russian oligarchs were welcome in Turkey. In October, the Financial Times reported that between January and August 2021, a record $28 billion from unclear origins had flowed into Turkey.
"Putin's goal remains anchoring Erdoğan more and more to Russia through a vast mesh of mutually beneficial operations in the fields of defense, energy, trade, and finance... By doing this, Putin is comforting an embattled incumbent president and is openly bolstering Erdoğan's position in the upcoming elections.... [T]he world is witnessing the Russian president using Turkey for his own benefits." — Marc Pierini, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and a former EU Ambassador to Ankara, August 30, 2022.
The Erdoğan-Putin bond has two main pillars. One is pragmatism: They both strategically, politically and economically benefit. The other is ideological: They both hate the West.
Turkish Islamists, especially neo-Ottomans, have historically hated Russia -- both Czarist and Soviet. Similarly, Russians and Soviets have never been great fans of the Turks -- both Ottoman and republican. Today, however, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with a big foot in NATO, is exhibiting a pro-Russian tilt never seen before, and at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen as an existential threat to Western interests. What is the secret behind this sudden marriage?
For Putin, Erdoğan's friendship is growing ever more important -- and vice versa.
Turkey has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, thereby throwing a lifeline to Putin. Turkish skies remain open to Russian airlines and its doors open to hundreds of thousands of Russians and their money. Turkish exports to Russia are surging. In July alone, exports to Russia shot up by a dizzying 75% year-on-year.
