Etiket arşivi: Russia-Turkey

Turkey’s Stormy Spring

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April 12, 2021

In a recent post I gave a summary of two weeks of disarray, confusion, and wobbling in Turkey. What the country has witnessed during the following two weeks gives me no other choice than to admit that my description was exaggeration. Actually, those two earlier weeks were a period of peace and calm by Turkish standards. Because a public appeal by retired admirals regarding the Canal Istanbul project, the Montreux Convention and respect for Ataturk’s secular legacy was presented by the government as a hint of a coup. The opposition was caught off guard and rode off in all directions. It was chaos. Yet, I could not help remembering the title of Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s 1974 song, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”.

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Idlib Ceasefire: Only a Respite

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March 8, 2020

On March 6, Presidents of Russia and Turkey met in Moscow. In remarks to the press before their meeting, President Putin said the situation in Idlib has deteriorated so much that the two leaders needed to have a direct and personal discussion. He added, “As you requested, we are ready to begin our talks one-on-one, and then our colleagues, who are with us in this room, will join us, if necessary.”

Thus, after the talks in restricted format, consultations continued with the participation of the delegations of the two countries. One may conclude, therefore, that the Syrian conflict with its Idlib dimension and the future of Russian-Turkish relations were taken up between the two leaders at full length. Okumaya devam et →

An Ultimatum That Boomeranged

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(Co-authored with Yusuf Buluç)[i]

The people of Turkey held their breath on the eve of the deadline set in the ultimatum  President Erdoğan served on the Syrian regime promising severe military punishment if  its forces  were not to withdraw to lines drawn in the so-called “Sochi agreement” between Russia and Turkey.  Evidently, there was no way that the regime, still recognized by the UN as the legitimate government of Syria, could heed this warning as it would amount to yielding its hard-won sovereign territory to Turkey’s control. More so, such withdrawal would have been hailed by some jihadist armed groups, listed by the UN as terrorist organizations,  which have taken most of the civilian inhabitants of the Idlib province as hostage in their quest to winning a rump of Syria to be dismembered. The regime, its air force largely under Russian command and control, reacted to the Turkish ultimatum not by resorting to terse and rejectionist rhetoric but unleashing a bombing campaign resulting in massive loss of life not recorded outside Turkish territory since the Korean war. Okumaya devam et →

Idlib: Raising the Stakes to What End?

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(Co-authored with Yusuf Buluç)[i]

February 20, 2020

Ten days ago, President Putin had a telephone conversation with President Erdogan at Turkish side’s initiative. A statement by the Kremlin said that the two leaders noted the importance of the full implementation of the existing Russian-Turkish agreements, including the Sochi Memorandum of September 17, 2018 and additional contacts between the relevant government agencies were planned for these purposes.

A few days later Presidents Erdoğan and Trump had a phone call. “The President expressed concern over the violence in Idlib, Syria and thanked President Erdogan for Turkey’s efforts to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe,” White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said in a statement. “President Trump also reiterated that continued foreign interference in Libya would only serve to worsen the situation,” he added, a discouraging reference to Ankara’s support to the Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Fayez al-Sarraj. Okumaya devam et →

Idlib Problem Reaching Boiling Point

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February 6, 2020

The agreement reached in May 2017 by Russia, Iran and Turkey in Astana called for the cessation of hostilities between rebel groups and regime forces in four “de-escalation” zones in the mainly opposition-held areas of Syria with Russia, Turkey and Iran acting as guarantors.

In broad terms, the deal covered four areas:

Zone 1: Idlib province,

Zone 2: The Rastan and Talbiseh enclave in northern Homs province,

Zone 3: Eastern Ghouta in the northern Damascus countryside,

Zone 4: The rebel-controlled south along the border with Jordan. Okumaya devam et →

Moment of Truth for Turkey’s Syria Policy

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December 3, 2015

On November 27, 2015 the Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration was pressing Turkey to deploy thousands of additional troops along its border with Syria to cordon off a 60-mile stretch of frontier that U.S. officials said was being used by the Islamic State fighters in and out of the war zone. This coincided with Turkish press reports that convoys of heavy weaponry were heading towards the south.

On November 30 President Putin held a press conference in Paris at the end of the UN Conference on Climate Change. He was extremely critical of Turkey: Okumaya devam et →