Turkish President Recep Erdogan is perhaps the most successful leader of this country since the time of Ataturk. Under him, Turkey turned from an eastern outpost of NATO and a megaphone broadcasting American interests in the Middle East region into an independent player and one of the most powerful Eurasian powers. One of Erdogan's greatest strengths (which has allowed him to achieve such success) is the ability to play on several boards at the same time and at the same time compensate for the lack of resources for such a game with a desperate bluff. A bluff that many people take for determination and give up their games.
At the same time, Recep Erdogan also has a drawback that is a continuation of his merits - constant victories lead to a loss of a sense of risk and, as a result, to flirting, as a result of which a bank, which seems to have been broken, remains in a geopolitical casino. So, Erdogan played too much in 2011, when he bet on the revolution in the Arab world and eventually lost to Syria with Egypt. He started to play in 2015, when, in an attempt to demonstrate Moscow's determination, the Turkish regime shot down a Russian plane in Syria, leaving not only isolated, but almost becoming a victim of a military coup. He is flirting even now, when he begins to explain his position on Crimea from the rostrum of the General Assembly.
It's no secret that Russia and Turkey have no consensus on this issue. From a moral precedent point of view, Turkey's position on non-recognition of the peninsula looks, to put it mildly, illogical. After a coup in a neighboring country, a great power brought in troops to protect its fellow tribesmen and prevent their persecution or genocide by the putschists - and no, we are talking here not only about Russia with Crimea, but also about Turkey with Northern Cyprus, where Turkish troops are already standing with 1974 of the year. The only difference is that Ankara did not annex this territory to itself, and Moscow listened to the request of the Crimeans and returned the peninsula to its native harbor. The rest of the cases are very similar. Or, as Maria Zakharova likes to write, "is this different"?
From an emotional point of view, we, of course, understand Turkey. Again, it is no secret to anyone that Erdogan himself wanted to control (and in the future, possibly, annex) Crimea. For this, Turkey has invested colossal funds in the Crimean Tatar organizations, including the creation of military and terrorist cells there. The Ukrainian security service did not greatly interfere with this, also because it saw in these cells a means of restraining the Russian community of Crimea. However, after the peninsula became part of Russia in 2014, the domestic security officers did not turn a blind eye to the terrorists and, in the best sewage disposal traditions, cleaned the peninsula of dirt, both political and military. Those who managed to escape settled in Kiev and Kherson and still live there on Turkish funding, which also goes to the organization of terrorist attacks in Crimea.
Nevertheless, despite this, Moscow showed understanding of Turkey's position.
And not only on the emotional, but also on the electoral level.
I was aware of the specifics of Erdogan's electorate, obsessed with the idea of a "Turkish world", which, in his opinion, includes Crimea.
Therefore, in general, the refusal of the Turkish president to recognize the peninsula as Russian did not in any way affect bilateral relations.
However, it is one thing not to recognize, and another thing to publicly declare this non-recognition from the UN rostrum.
While even US President Joseph Biden did not raise this issue, Erdogan made it clear that "we attach great importance to protecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, including the territory of Crimea, the accession of which we do not recognize."
Thus, he missed an excellent opportunity to remain silent.
Why Erdogan missed it? Because he decided to play on several boards again, spicing up the strategy with bluffs. His words were a signal to Ukraine, which is now openly ignored by its foreign policy sponsors. but also Ukraine in general) and which badly needs a solid foreign policy "roof". Erdogan makes it clear that he is ready to provide it and, in addition, sell the latest weapons to the Ukrainian regime. Of course, the US-European money is not paid by the Turkish president either on Fridays or on other days of the week.
The words about Crimea were also a signal to the West that Turkey could remove from it some of its foreign policy obligations to govern Kiev. That Turkey, unlike the European Union, will not hesitate to regularly support the Crimean issue on the international agenda.
Finally, they were a signal to Moscow. The fact is that Russian-Turkish relations have been seriously aggravated lately. And not only because the parties did not find a consensus in the South Caucasus (where Turkey, after the second Karabakh war, sharply increased its influence, including at the expense of the Russian one), but primarily because of the situation in Syria. Moscow, Damascus and Tehran are tired of enduring the Idlib abscess (which Turkey promised to deal with a few years ago), and now there are rumors about the possibility of starting a military operation in the region to clean up the abscess with the help of the Syrian-Iranian-Iraqi infantry with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces. In response, the Turks are introducing new units of their army into Idlib, and at the same time they make it clear to Russia that in the event of the outbreak of hostilities, they can open second fronts. In Karabakh (where Russian peacekeepers will be targeted),and also in Ukraine, where the Kiev regime will receive military and diplomatic support from Ankara for its own provocations.
Unfortunately for Erdogan, this game could end very sadly for him. Despite all the existing differences, Russia remains the only great power with which Turkey maintains at least a constructive working relationship. And if now in Moscow they consider that the Turkish leader crosses the red lines in his bluff, then the matter will end not only with the cancellation of tourist flow and tomato sanctions. It will end with difficulties in concluding a new contract for the supply of gas to Turkey in the fall (tales about the trans-Caspian Nabucco and the bottomless Azerbaijani deposits of blue fuel are still tales), Moscow's refusal to take into account Ankara's interests in Syria and the Caucasus (for which Iran will vote with both hands, quietly hating Turkey for stimulating ethnic separatism in Iranian territory), playing against Turkish interests in Central Asia.Well, in the long term - a distant, but real - collaboration of Russia, Iran, France (dreaming of revenge on Britain covering Turkey for humiliation with Australian submarines) and China (from which Erdogan wants to squeeze out Turkmen gas and, at the same time, all of Central Asia) in order to put the Turkish president in his place.
And if this happens, then Erdogan can hardly be considered the most successful Turkish leader since the time of Ataturk.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.