Putin-Erdogan: The meeting of two leaders who face foreign policy in the light of their own survival

Of Peter Apps

As Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Erdogan meet in Sochi tomorrow, some 20,000 Russian and Turkish workers and specialists at Akuyu on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast are moving ahead with what those behind the project describe as the largest nuclear power plant construction site in the world. people.

According to Turkish media, Russian energy agency Rosatom this week transferred the first $5 billion of a planned $20 billion, providing immediate support to the sinking Turkish lira and a reminder that Erdogan is on a dangerous economic, geopolitical and political tightrope, amid economic crisis, regional strife and with presidential elections on the near horizon.

Tomorrow’s meeting will be the second between the Russian and Turkish leaders in less than a month, following the July 19 meeting in Tehran with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The image of a NATO leader alongside two enemies that Washington wants to isolate was particularly troubling for US President Joe Biden.

In recent years, Turkey’s relations with the West have deteriorated, as Erdogan adopts a more idiosyncratic, independent and aggressive foreign policy.

Ankara and its allies have clashed with Russia’s allies in Syria and Libya, Turkish drones have bombed Russian tanks in Ukraine, and Russian opponents of Putin have settled in Istanbul as Erdogan openly co-operates with Moscow as a supplier of food and energy.

Last month’s UN-brokered deal with Turkey to unblock grain cargoes from Ukrainian Black Sea ports signaled the policy’s clear success, with Erdogan and Cavusoglu cashing in on their relatively good relationship. both with Moscow and Kyiv.

The first post-invasion grain shipment sailed Monday for Lebanon and was hailed as a breakthrough that could ease the global food and financial crisis. CNN Turk hinted that the deal is likely to give Turkey access to both Russian and Ukrainian grain at lower prices.

This may annoy the rest of the hungry world, but for Turkey it will be important. Official figures show inflation at nearly 80% year-on-year, with Erdogan repeatedly refusing to consider raising interest rates. The government says it is seeking to revive the economy by boosting exports, but soaring food and energy import prices – which must be paid for in foreign currency – risk offsetting both export growth and a recovery in revenue. tourism after the pandemic.

Even with Russian money inflows this week, the Turkish lira fell to its lowest level since the December 2021 currency crisis, losing about a quarter of its value. The cost of insuring Turkish debt in the credit default swap market is also at an all-time high as investors worry Ankara could follow Russia and Sri Lanka in defaulting on debt.

The perfect economic, political storm

With presidential elections scheduled for June 2023, tackling the cost of living will be critical to Erdogan’s re-election chances. Having survived a 2016 coup attempt with the help of police and loyalist elements of the military, the Islamist AKP unexpectedly lost control of Istanbul and Ankara in 2019 municipal elections to the opposition. It is not yet clear who Erdogan’s opponent will be next year, just as it is unclear what the veteran Turkish leader will do if it appears he will lose the election. Reducing the cost of living and ensuring access to food and energy is emerging as a critical foreign policy issue. Last month’s Russia-Turkey-Iran summit included talks on using local currencies for trade between them, Putin told reporters afterward.

If it was overshadowed at the time by talks between the three countries trying to find common ground on a possible Turkish military invasion of Syria, the discussions on using the Turkish lira to buy Iranian and Russian oil and natural gas is a move that will clearly benefit Ankara , while potentially helping both Moscow and Tehran circumvent US sanctions.

None of these negotiations seem easy. Even if the money was transferred to the Turkish-Russian nuclear plant at Akkuyu, Rosatom’s subsidiary Akkuyu Nukleer announced that it had terminated the agreement with the Turkish company IC Ictas in favor of its competitor, TSM Enerji. This prompted legal action by IC Ictas, with the Turkish Energy Ministry saying it was trying to resolve the issue.

Open and hidden agenda

The legal dispute could delay construction of the nuclear plant, which is hoped to meet around 10% of Turkey’s energy demand, with the first reactor scheduled to come online next year.

Russian-Turkish relations remain complicated, as they are placed in a framework of open as well as more hidden positions. In Tehran, Erdogan pointedly left Putin waiting in front of reporters for several minutes at a joint appearance, mimicking an earlier similar snub to him during his 2020 visit to Moscow.

Last month there was a temporary shutdown of the Turkstream natural gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey, with the excuse of “maintenance” by Gazprom. However, the event was seen by traders as a sign of Russia’s displeasure over Turkey’s possible approval of Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

The rift in relations with the West after Erdogan’s initial refusal to agree to their accession remains, however, with growing opposition from the US Congress to the sale of US F-16s to Turkey and the well-known conflict between Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and of Germany’s Analena Burbock on the tension with Greece, as well as Turkey’s human rights record.

All this may not bother Erdogan and those around him – disagreements with the West do no harm to his political base, as demonstrated by his opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Meanwhile, the battlefield successes of Turkey’s Bayraktar and other drones have encouraged Ankara to pour more resources into a program to develop its own fifth-generation fighter jet, though that plan has also been bogged down by long-running disputes with Western and other industries. weapons.

It is likely that Russia will again emerge as a potential partner for the development of this fighter jet – although it is possible that the damage that Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles has caused to relations with NATO will make the prospect this is an option that Turkey will want to ignore, unless it sees significant potential, especially for the export of fighter jets.

All of this raises the stakes for tomorrow’s meeting between Erdogan and Putin, both of whom are eager to build a world in which they and their countries will do as they please, but both of whom also view foreign policy in terms of their own survival. .

Source: AMPE

* Peter Apps deals with International Relations, globalization and more. He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Study of the 21st Century, PS21. He was a Reuters reporter and is still with Thomson Reuters.