Turkish drift?

On August 9, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his first foreign visit after the failed coup. The Turkish leader arrived in St. Petersburg at the head of a large delegation to hold talks with the Russian president, whom he called “my friend Vladimir” in an interview for TASS news agency; he also called his visit to Russia a “historic event.” It should be noted that this was the first meeting between the presidents of Russia and Turkey since November past year when relations between the two countries deteriorated sharply because of a Su-24 bomber’s shootdown over Turkish territory.

Since ritual is important during meetings of leaders of such a high rank, the observers noted that Putin and Erdogan had exchanged a handshake. Furthermore, the cameras recorded the Russian president waiting for his Turkish counterpart for two minutes. Putin began the talks by saying that Russia and Turkey sought to restore bilateral relations. “This visit of yours, which you are making despite the complicated internal political situation in Turkey, shows that we all want to restore our dialog and our relations,” he said. However, the Russian leader also noted that these relations had deteriorated in recent months and reminded that it had happened after the Su-24 incident. He stated his intention to discuss with Erdogan the bilateral relations in their entirety, including the fight against terrorism and economic relations.

In turn, Erdogan noted that Turkey had entered a very difficult period in its relations with Russia and solidarity between the two countries would help solve many problems in the region. He also said he had been glad to receive a call from Putin after the attempted coup in his country.

Some journalists – and almost 200 were accredited for coverage of this meeting – noted two points which characterized the very fact of it happening. Julia Davis noted on Twitter that Putin shook hands with Erdogan, the man he had accused of making deals with the ISIS. She also wrote that the Kremlin propagandists were shocked by the fact that Erdogan did not apologize for shooting down the Su-24 and did not even mention the incident.

“IN FACT, IT IS ABOUT THE RELATIONS BEING RESTORED TO THE LEVEL EXISTING BEFORE THE PLANE SHOOTDOWN”

Serhii KORSUNSKY, former Ambassador of Ukraine to Turkey:

“I am totally sure that Turkey will not change its position on Crimea and Crimean Tatars. I think that all that we are seeing in the media, and especially the Turkish press and TV, is so far just the outer shell of what will happen next and content of which we will still need to analyze when it becomes a reality. So far, it is about restoration of economic ties. Despite all these fairly strange statements about a ‘new page’ or a ‘historic visit,’ I would prefer to evaluate any further steps and further developments only by looking at specific actions. In fact, it is about the relations being restored to the level existing before the plane shootdown. That is, Russian tourists, I mean those who Putin still allows to go abroad, will probably come to Turkey again. Also, the talks on the Turkish Stream pipeline will be restarted, but Turkey has always been open about its support for the construction of a single line only. Also, the trade will restart, and as far as I know, and this is something that has not yet been made public, large Turkish companies will most likely return to work on the facilities being built for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

I would like to say the following so that people in Ukraine understand. As for the construction of a nuclear power plants in Turkey, which has been discussed for so many years, there is no progress there. This is so since it remains frozen not due to the plane shootdown, but because no proper environmental impact assessment has been done and there are financial difficulties on the Russian side.

Secondly, concerning the Turkish Stream, one may claim to one’s heart’s content that at least one line will be built, but the real issue is that neither Turkey nor Russia have the technology to build that pipeline. These technologies are proprietary know-hows of an Eni subsidiary, which once kept two ships in the Black Sea expecting the South Stream to happen, and then when it became clearly unrealistic, these ships went home after Gazprom paid a large compensation, amounting to 300 million euros.

The point is that these conversations are still only conversations. Trade and tourism – yes, it can happen. But I have heard nothing about the two countries returning to a visa-free travel regime. As far as I know, they do not intend to cancel visa requirements for Turkish citizens so far, perhaps this will be stated later. And I think that we are now seeing suggestions rather than any actions that threaten our interests. Certainly, we have to carefully monitor this event and make sure that there is nothing threatening Ukraine’s interests in it. At the moment, I do not see it there.”