Because Erdogan is going to Kiev

By Costas Raptis

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to pay a visit to Kiev, where he will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on Thursday (February 3rd) with the aim of maintaining tensions in the region and preventing tensions.

This is the new attempt of the strong man from Ankara to intervene in the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, with the “weapon” of the good relations he maintains with both Kiev and Moscow.

It was preceded by an offer to host Zelensky’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, which was rejected by the Russian side.

However, Erdogan is not bending. He hopes to have a meeting with the Kremlin resident, whom he invited, like Zelensky, to visit his country. The Turkish press wants to present this meeting as a given, but Moscow depends on Putin’s visit to Turkey on “expert data” and the Russian president’s plan, where his visit to Beijing in the near future will dominate. Winter Olympics In other words, do not rush at all.

The reason for this lukewarm stance lies in the Russian side’s dissatisfaction with the sending of Turkish drones to Ukraine and the loud allegations of the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014, which Erdogan occasionally makes as if there had never been a 1974 invasion and the ongoing occupation of northern Cyprus. In fact, as early as the spring, Moscow had warned Ankara not to contribute to the militarization of the Ukrainian crisis by exporting military equipment.

After all, Erdogan has not stopped emphasizing that his country is a loyal member of NATO and as such he is going to move.

In any case, the real stakes in recent weeks have become much greater, so that Turkey can play a serious role. Russia is claiming a new security architecture in Europe by providing written guarantees of NATO non-expansion, and this, as Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoλουlu acknowledged, is something that will be resolved, if possible, between Moscow and Washington.

In any case, the Turkish leader has every interest in appearing useful to as many sides as possible. In particular, it is interested in rescuing the advantages of the relationship it has built with Russia, namely its secure supply of natural gas (much more critical now that it has been cut off “due to failure”, the corresponding flow from Iran, causing major problems in the continuation of the construction of the Akuyu nuclear power plant, the channeling of Turkish agricultural products into the Russian market, the influx of millions of Russian tourists to the resorts of Turkey, but also the negotiation on hot fronts where the two sides do not coincide like Syria , Libya and the Caucasus.

More broadly, Turkey has good reason to be concerned, as guardian of the Straits under the Montreux Treaty, about the security of the Black Sea and the possible militarization of tensions.

But in the eyes of Russian leaders, Erdogan is more than ever stigmatized by the suspicion that he is playing a “double game.” Germany’s media targeting of its reluctance to raise its voice). The “black sheep” that disrupted the cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance with the supply of Russian S-400 has now fallen into the soft.