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Erdogan Goes to Russia

Eurasia Live
08 August 2016 | 04:50 PM ET
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A LOT CAN happen in a few months  Turkey's President Erdogan hasn't sat face to face with Russia's President Putin since the Turkish shoot-down of a Russian plane last November—and then the wave of Western criticism in response to Erdogan's post-coup crackdown of recent weeks. What does Turkey's president want from Putin? What will Russia's president request in return? And should the West be worried?

Willis Sparks, Director of Global Macro sat down with Eurasia Director Alex Kliment to talk about the visit and its geopolitical implications.


FULL TRANSCRIPT:

WILLIS SPARKS: Hi, I'm Willis Sparks for Eurasia Live. I'm Global Macro Director at Eurasia Group. I'm here with Alexander Kliment, who is a Russia analyst, and who is not wearing socks I noticed. We'll talk about that later.

ALEX KLIMENT: It's true.

SPARKS: We're here to talk about the fact that in the news tomorrow, you're going to notice that the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is going to Russia to visit the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in St. Petersburg, Russia. And the funny thing is, Alex, nine months ago, a Russian plane strayed into Turkish airspace, and the Turks shot it down. And we were actually worried there for a few days that Turkey and Russia might actually stumble into a real conflict.

Here we are nine months later, a lot has happened in the nine months since then, talking about their new friendship, their new cooperation. So my first question, why is Erdogan going to visit Putin in Russia? What does he hope to get from his meeting with Putin?

KLIMENT: So I think there are really two things that Erdogan is trying to get. The first and most urgent is to get Russia to relax some of the economic sanctions that the Kremlin imposed on Turkey after Turkey shot down that aircraft. If either side has suffered more from this conflict or this tension over the past nine months, it's certainly been Turkey, right? The Russians have banned the import of Turkish food products. They've stopped the flow of Russian tourists to Turkey.

SPARKS: Very important for Turkey.

KLIMENT: Very important for Turkey economically. And they've made life difficult for the many Turkish businesses, particularly in construction and banks that do business in Russia. So the first thing President Erdogan wants is for President Putin to relax some of those sanctions.
At the same time, I think there's a geopolitical angle here as well. Turkey is coming under a lot of criticism from its allies in NATO, in the EU, and the US about the crackdown that President Erdogan has carried out in response to the failed coup that took place in Turkey last month. So I think there's also an element here where President Erdogan is trying to sort of show NATO and show the US, hey you know, you can criticize me all you like, but I've got other friends.

SPARKS: So, what does Putin get out of it then? If Putin is welcoming Erdogan, presumably he's got an angle here too. What's his angle?

KLIMENT: Well, Putin certainly loves the idea of presenting Russia as the alternative to NATO or the EU or to the US. He does that very well. He sees that Turkey is in the position of economic and political uncertainty, you know, increasingly strained relations between Turkey and NATO, and so Putin sees a great opportunity to kind of swoop in and say, hey, you know, I can be an alternative.

I think there are also some specific things that Russia wants. One is to get President Erdogan to take a more accommodating position on Russia's aims to expand its naval power in the Black Sea. Turkey is a major Black Sea naval power on its own. I think Russia would probably also like to see Turkey not be quite so supportive of Crimean Tatars who have been marginalized in Crimea since Russia annexed it.

SPARKS: But Syria is a big part of this too, right?

KLIMENT: But Syria is a big part of this too. And I think Syria is actually one of the places where there's a limitation on how far the two sides can go. Russia and Turkey have very different views still on what the future of Syria and President Bashar al-Assad should be. The Russians basically say he should stay in power for some period of time. The Turkish side basically says that he should be out as soon as possible.

SPARKS: Erdogan hates him.

KLIMENT: Erdogan can't stand him. So it's possible we can see some narrowing of their positions on this issue. The Turks might cut back some of their largely ineffective support for anti-Assad rebels. The Russians might cut back support for some of the Kurds. But I think that basic kind of deadlock about what the future of Syria looks like is a limitation.

SPARKS: So we were wrong to worry nine months ago that Russia and Turkey, a NATO member, might end up in a conflict. Are people wrong now to worry that Russia and this NATO member, Turkey, are getting a lot closer together?

KLIMENT: I think there's a long way between a tactical rapprochement between Ankara and Moscow and a full-blown departure of Turkey from the NATO alliance, a strategic alliance with Russia, I mean these things are so far-fetched.

But from Putin's perspective, he doesn't need Turkey to leave NATO. All he needs is to raise enough doubts about the coherence and purpose of the alliance that individual member states wonder whether the project is worth carrying on at all, right? Putin sees NATO as the number one existential threat to Russia's sovereignty and security. So anything he can do to raise questions about the purpose or coherence of the alliance is a net win in his book.

SPARKS: So they're both thin-skinned leaders that tend to get themselves into fights. But they're both also political opportunists and we're going to see that tomorrow in St. Petersburg.

KLIMENT: Yeah, I can't speak to their skin, but I can certainly speak to their political style.

SPARKS: Oh, they're thin-skinned, yes. Thank you Alex Kliment.

KLIMENT: Thank you, Willis.
 
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