West uneasy as Moscow and Ankara edge closer

[MikeWB]

The two leaders could hardly send a stronger message.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan will this week make his first trip abroad since surviving last month's coup attempt. And instead of visiting a Nato ally, the Turkish president is going to Vladimir Putin's Russia.

The pair will meet on Tuesday in the Russian president's home town of St Petersburg, as they attempt to bring relations back on track following a bitter fallout over Turkey's downing of a Russian fighter jet in November.
As both the west and Russia wonder which path Mr Erdogan, who has been quick to exploit events to purge his opponents, will take after the failed putsch, the summit has taken on broader geopolitical significance.
"The west is criticising Erdogan over his crackdown in the wake of the coup, and Erdogan is denouncing them over that," said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Centre. "This tension between Turkey and its Nato allies is extremely beneficial to Russia."
The rapprochement between Moscow and Ankara began in June, before the coup attempt, when the Kremlin accepted Mr Erdogan's apology for the downing of the aircraft over Turkey's shared border with Syria. Within days, officials from both countries had begun talks to roll back sanctions Russia imposed on Turkey following the incident.
Since then broader issues have pushed Moscow and Ankara closer together, including the desire to teach the west a lesson and shared interests in dealing with the regional security threat. Ankara also welcomed the fact that Moscow gave its unequivocal backing to Turkey following the failed coup.
"We appreciate the fact that the Russian Federation assumed a clear position on this issue," Ibrahim Kalin, Mr Erdogan's spokesman, told Russian news agency Tass last week.
This tone contrasts with Ankara's rhetoric towards its allies. Mr Erdogan has repeatedly lashed out at the US for its response to the coup attempt and its failure to extradite Fethullah Gulen, the 75-year-old former imam accused of masterminding the plot from his self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania — a charge he strongly refutes.
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Just hours after a visit to Turkey last week by Joseph Dunford, head of the US military, aimed at soothing tensions, Mr Erdogan unleashed some of his harshest remarks so far. "I'm calling on the US: what kind of strategic partner are we, that you can still host someone whose extradition I have asked for?" he said.
He went on to accuse the west of supporting terrorism and said the "script" for the plot "was written outside" Turkey.
One Turkish diplomat in Moscow said: "Our relations with the US are the worst in 50 years  . . .  and that definitely makes engaging Russia an attractive option."
For Mr Putin, the tension between the Nato allies is welcome — Moscow has for two decades condemned Nato expansion and recently stepped up its criticism that the alliance was a threat to Russia. Mr Malashenko talks of a "revival of the theory that Russia and Turkey should be close because both are former empires . . .  simultaneously European and somehow unique."
In private, Turkish officials adopt a different tone, insisting they are not about to burn bridges with the US and forge an alliance with Russia.
The bond between Washington and Ankara is strong, they say, and they point out that the two countries have weathered many other bumpy periods in their relationship — the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Turkey's refusal to serve as a base for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, American support for Iraqi Kurds under the rule of Saddam Hussein and, more recently, help for those battling Isis in Syria.
But diplomats worry that Ankara could use Russia as a lever in its relations with the west, including over Syria. Turkey cut off power to the Incirlik air base, from which the US launches bombing raids against Isis, for a week after the coup.
Russian and Turkish diplomats said they expected Turkey would now tone down public criticism of Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, and privately acquiesce to Moscow's position that his regime is one of the guarantors of preserving Syrian statehood at least during a transition period. Ankara has backed rebels battling forces loyal to Mr Assad, while Russia supports the Syrian leader's regime.
In return, Turkey will hope that Mr Putin will agree to moderate his support for Syria's Kurds, although one Russian foreign policy expert said any policy revision would be "tricky" in practice. "Ties with the Kurds run deep throughout Russia's diplomatic community, and we will never give up this asset," he said.
Despite shared interest over regional issues, officials in Moscow and Ankara also remain guarded in guessing the outcome of their leaders' meeting.
"One should not expect things to very quickly return to the level where they were before the [fighter jet] incident," said Dimitry Peskov, Mr Putin's spokesman who spent eight years as a diplomat in Ankara. "It will take time to restore trust."
Mr Malashenko said the test of whether the reconciliation was strategic or a tactical ruse would be evident in the pace at which Turkish-Russian economic ties were restored.
One European diplomat said: "Erdogan can lash out all he likes but he needs us. He knows he cannot trust Putin. How many Turkish-Russian wars have there been over the last three hundred years? How many did the Turks win?"
Summit could lead to roll-back of sanctions
Tourism
Russia in November banned the sale of packaged tours and charter flights to Turkey and suspended the two countries' visa free travel agreement. Moscow lifted the tour group ban in late June but the two governments are still negotiating ending the charter flights ban. Officials expect Russian packaged tourism to Turkey to resume before the fall, too late for the summer season but in time for Russian New Year holidays.
Agricultural products
An embargo on Turkish vegetables and fruit, in force since the start of this year, is expected to be lifted only gradually as Moscow wants to negotiate more access to the Turkish market for Russian agricultural products in exchange. Russian officials estimate that re-admitting the full range of Turkish food products will take six to eight months.
Energy
The two sides resumed talks last month on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project which Russia had also frozen. While there is believed to be enough demand in the Turkish market for two pipelines, Moscow wants to add one line for transits to the EU via Greece. But such a plan would collide with EU regulators as have previous Russian pipeline projects. Talks on Turkey's first nuclear power plant which is being built by Russia have also resumed but will take time, Moscow has said.
Turkish companies
A partial exclusion of Turkish construction companies, which have long had a big role in the Russian market, is expected to be reversed quickly if the summit goes well. Things are less clear for Turkish companies and individual traders who had come under pressure since the sanction were implemented to sell their businesses in Russia to Russian citizens or were forced to leave the country.

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