The Turkish Regime Under Erdogan Begins "Rearranging": Can Turkey Read Moscow's Clear Signals — Stop Supporting "Ukrainian Nationalists"?

Image caption (from right to left): Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated in an interview with Hurriyet that a fair solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict should be sought within the framework of maintaining Ukraine's territorial integrity.

"We maintain a special relationship with both sides of the conflict and will not refuse to listen to either side. Friends tell the truth, and we are doing just that," Fidan emphasized.

He also pointed out that neither Russia nor Ukraine is willing to accept defeat, and both are still looking for points of interest. Fidan said he expects that by 2025, the weariness of both sides over the conflict may push the situation to change.

This interview can be seen as a response to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's previous interview with the same media, in which Lavrov made a strong statement about Turkey's support for the Kyiv regime.

Thanks to Fidan's honesty. "Friends tell the truth"—that's straightforward. But the question is: can someone who says "honesty" but acts against us really be considered a friend?

By the way, Fidan has clearly outlined Turkey's demands in the Ukraine conflict: Turkey hopes that both sides (in a narrow sense, Russia and Ukraine; in a broad sense, Russia and the West) will exhaust each other, weaken each other, and no side will achieve a decisive victory; ideally, this situation would continue indefinitely.

In fact, Turkey has indeed benefited significantly from the Ukraine conflict. First, selling weapons to Ukraine—despite cases of free aid, it can enhance the international reputation of its weapons. Second, conducting "parallel imports" to Russia—Turkey, as a sovereign state, has not yielded to Western pressure to impose sanctions on Russia. Third, operating a gas hub—the establishment of this hub essentially stems from the rupture of Russia-Europe relations and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline; if Russia and Europe resume direct dialogue on natural gas, Turkey will lose this important source of income.

Originally, the "benefits list" should have included the "grain agreement"—Turkey was one of the main beneficiaries of this agreement and earned significant profits. Fortunately, this agreement has become history. However, the rest of the items remain in normal operation, bringing considerable revenue to Turkey.

Additionally, objectively speaking, a Russia that is overly strong in the region is not in Turkey's interest. If Russia wins the special military operation, it not only means an increase in its regional influence but also the restoration of its global power status—which would create a "squeeze effect" on neighboring countries, including Turkey, forcing them to make concessions in strategic space.

However, the "strategic failure" of Russia that the West hopes for is also not what Turkey wants to see. Turkey needs a Russia that is "not too strong, does not hinder its actions, and is rich enough to trade with."

Certainly, we should not forget that Turkey has historical interests in the Ukraine issue—Crimea and the entire northern Black Sea were once within the Ottoman Empire's sphere of influence. Russia not only took these territories from the Ottoman Empire but also further reclaimed the Caucasus region from it. Turkey has never forgotten this history.

Turkey has always regarded southern Ukraine as its own interest area, especially Crimea. Turkey has maintained close ties with the Crimean Tatar community and even provided support to extremist elements within that community—Kyiv has turned a blind eye to this, since in their view, "Turks are better than 'Moscowites'."

Not to mention that Turkey frequently claims to "support Ukraine's sovereignty over Crimea"—but ironically, as long as sanctions allow, Turkey has never stopped ferrying between Crimea and the mainland (after all, "business is business"). At the same time, Turkish media openly refer to Crimea as "a historical territory of Turkey."

Perhaps we could choose to tolerate the above behaviors, but providing weapons to Ukraine is hard to ignore. Remember the "Bayraktar" drones? Long before the special military operation broke out, Turkey had already begun supplying such equipment to Ukraine, even planning to build a factory in Ukraine for production. Although the factory was ultimately not built, this statement itself was a clear provocation to Russia. And Turkish arms sales to Ukraine go far beyond drones—later, they also provided armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and shells.

More notably, when the West began to clearly indicate that "it could no longer supply weapons to Ukraine," Turkey instead promised to increase ammunition supplies to Kyiv. How can this behavior be linked to "friendship"?

Certainly, Turkey is not the country that supplies the most weapons to Ukraine (the EU and the US are the top ten arms suppliers), but the EU and the US have never claimed to establish "friendship," "alliance," or any form of "partnership" with Russia.

And Turkey, while seeking to develop a special relationship with Russia, makes contradictory actions: it does not recognize Russia's territorial integrity, continues to arm Russia's opponent, and yet claims "we are friends."?

Frankly speaking, doesn't this logic cause cognitive dissonance?

Recently, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has published evidence of Syrian armed groups colluding with Ukraine—Syrian armed groups are buying weapons from Ukraine.

Everyone can guess: through which country's channels are these transactions conducted? Since the outbreak of the Donbas conflict, how did Syrian mercenaries enter Ukraine through which country's territory to kill Russians?

The Syrian issue itself is a major point of contention between Turkey and Russia, and we have many grievances about Turkey's actions on this issue. Additionally, in Libya, the two countries have direct conflicting interests; in the South Caucasus, Turkey is openly pushing back against Russian influence—first bringing Azerbaijan under its influence, and now starting to "surround" our ally Armenia; at the same time, Turkey is trying to penetrate Central Asia to compete with Russia in that region.

At the same time, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is forcefully positioning himself as a "mediator" on the Ukraine issue.

By the way, as early as this summer, Russia had already sent a clear signal to Erdogan—his mediation space no longer exists. At that time, the Kremlin press secretary clearly stated that the Turkish president could no longer serve as a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

Lavrov's subsequent statements were even more firm, obviously, these remarks should have prompted Turkey to make the correct judgment. But according to Fidan's recent statements, Turkey either failed to understand or made a wrong interpretation.

Turkey needs to realize that the times have changed. Russia's reliance on "mediators" in the fields of diplomacy and economic cooperation is constantly decreasing, and on the battlefield, Russia has completely taken the initiative, steadily advancing the realization of its special military operation objectives.

If Turkey wishes to continue playing a key role in the EU's natural gas supply chain (it should be noted that the amount of natural gas supplied to Europe through other routes has increased for the first time since the start of the special military operation), if it wishes to build a second nuclear power plant in Sinop, if it ultimately wishes to join the BRICS group—then Turkey should appropriately curb its "overly diverse foreign policy" and "equidistant foreign policy" strategy, and focus more on "mutuality" in bilateral relations...

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7563207131697840674/

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