Moscow-Ankara move towards rappochement

 

By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi.

 

 

Moscow-Ankara move towards pacification

On 29 June 2016, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a 45-minute-long telephone call in which they “highlighted the importance to normalise bilateral relations” and declared the need to make joint steps to improve political, economic and humanitarian co-operation.

This comes after what the Kremlin described as a letter from Erdogan to Putin, on 27 June, officially apologising for the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 fighter by the Turkish Air Force on the Turkey-Syria border in November 2015. This led to the introduction of numerous Russian restrictions on trade, investments and tourism, damaging bilateral economic ties.

The events of tensions

On 3 October 2015, a Russian Su-30 entered Turkish airspace after a bombing run in northern Syria. The jet departed after two Turkish F-16s scrambled in response. The move was interpreted as deliberate by Turkey, while Russia claimed that it was merely a navigation error. In response, the Russian ambassador inAnkara was called to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in protest, after which Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu’s made a direct phone call to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

A second incident took place on October 4, during which an unidentified MiG-29 coming from Syrian airspace locked its radar on Turkish jets for a duration of five minutes. The following day, another unidentified jet “painted” eight Turkish jets with its radar lock, after which missile systems inside Syria locked on to Turkish planes for about four minutes. In response to such continued escalation, NATO has stepped up its criticism of Russia, with Secretary General Jens

Stoltenberg denouncing the violations as “deliberate.” The White House also stepped in, criticizing what it sees as “provocation U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the incident could lead to more intense escalation if violations continued.

The Turkish initiative

After seven months of stalled relations–barbed comments and sanctions–Russia and Turkey may be moving toward a rapprochement. On Monday, according to the Russians, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter “in which the Turkish President expressed his desire to settle the situation concerning the downing of a Russian military aircraft.”

In the letter, Erdogan “expressed his deep regret for what happened” regarding the November 24, 2015, incident in which Turkey shot down a Russian jet along the Turkish-Syrian border, resulting in the pilot’s death. The incident led to a breakdown of relations between the two countries: Russian President Vladimir Putin called Turkey “accomplices of terrorists” and imposed imposed sanctions on Turkey as well as suspending visa-free travel and package vacations to the country.

Since Turkey shot down a Russian jet in November 2015, tensions with Moscow not only had negative effects on the Turkish economy but also limited Ankara’s involvement in the Syrian civil war. In recent months, the threat of Russian attacks against Turkish jets prevented Turkey’s participation in coalition missions as Moscow placed Turkish interests at risk by actively supporting the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the PKK’s Syrian franchise. In recent months, Turkish leaders had made it clear that they would like to leave the dispute with Russia behind them. To facilitate rapprochement, a high-level Turkish delegation recently visited Moscow and shared Turkey’s side of the story. At the same time, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on multiple occasions stated that it made little sense for Turkey and Russia to let a Russian pilot’s mistake derail mutually beneficial relations.

In response, the Russian government announced that they would like Turkey to meet three demands – issue an apology, offer compensation and hand over those responsible for the jet’s downing to Russian authorities. Obviously, Ankara found the demands unacceptable. Provided that the Russian jet had violated Turkish airspace, accepting the Kremlin’s terms would mean accepting the charges.

On July 1, at the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organisation’s foreign ministers meeting in Sochi, Russia, the Turkish and Russian foreign ministers met. The two presidents also reportedly agreed to work towards meeting in the near future. The Kremlin categorized the call as “business-like, constructive, and focused,” an improvement over the rhetoric of late 2015 between the two leaders.

But it’s not necessarily smooth sailing from here for Ankara and Moscow. The two nations still don’t see eye-to-eye with regard to Syria; Turkey is staunchly in favor of booting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who enjoys Russian support. At the same time, Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies have put him more at odds with the West and politically closer to Russia, perhaps generating some of the energy in Ankara to repair relations with Moscow.

Steps towards pacification?

It would appear that Turkey and Russia are ready to take the necessary steps to settle the dispute through dialogue. Needless to say, turning over a fresh leaf would serve the interests of both countries, who suffered unnecessary setbacks in recent months. But it’s important to note that Ankara and Moscow will continue to disagree on the future of Syria and the Russian invasion of Crimea. And new confrontations won’t be off the table unless Moscow stops bothering Turkey and the international community.

Officials have encouraged Russians to spend their holidays inside Russia as part of a resurgent nationalism in recent years and a drive to boost national industries. This was aided by the 2014 run on the ruble amid falling oil prices and Western sanctions on Moscow that made foreign travel beyond the reach of many ordinary Russians.

Russians traditionally flock to resorts on Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean coasts year-round — but the number of visits collapsed seven months ago because of the Kremlin ban and some beaches are reportedly empty. Russian tourist numbers in the popular resort of Antalya in the first half of June were down 98.5 percent, the Association of Russian Tour Operators said last week.

While experts are divided over how quickly airlines and tour operators will be able to reintroduce the sale of package holidays to Turkey, most agreed that large numbers of Russians could return to Turkey by the end of August, in time for the last two months of the summer season. 

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