MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th February, 2022) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot claim to be an impartial mediator in the ongoing crisis between Russia and Ukraine while at the same time boosting military cooperation with Kiev, experts have told Sputnik.
During last week's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kiev, Erdogan said he was ready to bring together the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to resolve the ongoing tensions. Ankara and Kiev also inked a deal that provides for significant expansion of production of Bayraktar drones in Ukraine.
According to Gareth Jenkins, a non-resident senior research fellow with the Joint Center Silk Road Studies Program and Turkey Center at the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm, one cannot prop up one side of the conflict and then claim to be an unbiased peacemaker.
"Ankara should have been clever enough to realize that there is a contradiction between increasing its military cooperation with Ukraine - and increasing Ukraine's military capabilities -- at the same time as it is presenting itself as a potential impartial mediator between Kyiv and Moscow," Jenkins said.
The expert went on to state that Russia is likely to view increased Turkish arms sales to Ukraine as a hostile act, and while Moscow is ready to work with Turkey, it does not put much trust in Erdogan, especially after the Bayraktar deal.
"Although he has always had clear personal and ideological goals, Erdogan has also always been an opportunist, ever ready to seize an opportunity to enrich himself or his close associates - including his son-in-law's company that produces Bayraktar drones," Jenkins said.
Despite the incongruity, Erdogan's attempts to insert himself into the Ukrainian crisis do not seem out of place if one takes into account Ankara's concerns over how Moscow's potential gains may affect the power balance in the region.
"Erdogan has both strategic and personal motives here. Strategically, as a direct neighbor of Russia, Turkey has been wary of Russian power and ambitions for centuries," Kanishkan Sathasivam, a political science professor at Salem State University, said, adding that "Erdogan is very much driven by his view of himself as some modern-day sultan destined to play a great role in defining Turkey's future, and go down in history as one of Turkey's greatest leaders."
Nevertheless, the expert does not foresee Turkey playing a significant role in the Ukrainian crisis settlement, on account of "Putin will want the stage and the spotlight to be entirely for himself, and is not likely to be willing to share it." Sathasivam noted that Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made a similar offer to hold a Russian-Ukrainian summit and Putin rejected it.
Meanwhile, Huseyin Bagci, the president of the Turkish Foreign Policy Institute and a professor of international relations at the middle East Technical University in Ankara, thinks that by pursuing "neighborhood diplomacy" Erdogan is attempting to improve his image in the eyes of the international community.
"Erdogan's intention is to appear as 'regional peace maker' and use it as a leverage also in his domestic politics. It is a fact that he keeps very good relations with Putin and Zelensky. He is a 'backgammon player' and thinks that he can do it. He offered his invitation but whether there will be an answer we will see," Bagci added.
Birol Baskan, a non-resident scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, does not believe Erdogan's aspirations to become a mediator between Ukraine and Russia are realistic, saying that the crux of the conflict is "more daunting than a mere miscommunication problem," but expressed hope that Turkey nevertheless could play a positive role and help avert a military conflict.
In late January, Erdogan announced that he had invited Putin to Turkey, with the Russian president accepting the invitation and promising to go as soon as the epidemiological situation permits.
The meeting could serve as a good opportunity to hash out the leaders' differences on the situation in Ukraine as well as Syria's Idlib province, however, experts do not expect a breakthrough on any of those fronts.
"The best that they can probably hope for - and it is not certain that they will succeed - is that they will be able to contain their differences over Ukraine and Idlib and preserve some of the other elements in what is at best always a highly compartmentalized relationship," Jenkins stated.
Baskan, for his part, is surprised that Putin accepted the invitation in the first place.
"What leverage does Turkey have against Russia? Not much, I believe. In any case, I do not think that the two leaders will resolve their disagreements. But, I hope to be proven wrong and both sides agree to a peaceful, diplomatic solution," the expert concluded.
