Politkom.ru , Russia
Oct 11 2012
Putin Set Against Erdogan
by Ivan Preobrazhenskiy
Vladimir Putin has postponed his visit to Turkey, which was planned
for 14-15 October. He will now go there no earlier than November, if
he goes at all, because relations between the two countries are
rapidly deteriorating. As is appropriate for the two biggest regional
powers in the Black Sea basin, Turkey and Russia have finally clashed
head-on over Syria, and neither side is likely to decide to moderate
its ambitions. Most likely, the hidden standoff will only increase and
will sooner or later turn into a direct political conflict.
The Bloomberg agency, citing the Turkish prime minister’s office,
reported that the Russian leader’s visit has been postponed until
November because of Putin’s busy schedule. That is also how the
Kremlin officially explains it. And an anonymous high-ranking Turkish
diplomat explained to the Hurriyet Daily News that the reasons for the
change of date are purely bureaucratic. In this way both sides are
giving an assurance that the two countries’ diametrically opposed
positions on the Syrian crisis are nothing to do with it.
However, that is simply impossible to believe. Most likely, Moscow and
Ankara are simply trying not to “wash their dirty linen in public.” A
Kremlin source suggested to the Vedomosti newspaper, for instance,
that the Russian president’s arrival in the territory of one of the
conflicting parties might have been wrongly interpreted in both Turkey
and Syria. Not to mention the fact that on Wednesday the Turks forced
an aircraft en route from Moscow to the Syrian capital Damascus to
land, searched it, and, it is reported, confiscated several sealed
containers supposedly containing either military cargo or dual-use
cargo, for instance communications equipment.
After that, Yelena Kara-Sal, chief of the consular section at the
Russian Federation Embassy in Ankara, told Interfax that the cargo
confiscated by the Turkish authorities from the Syrian aircraft is not
of Russian origin. And a source in the Russian military industrial
complex told the same agency: “Neither weapons nor any kind of systems
or components for combat equipment were or could have been on board a
passenger aircraft.”
These conflicting views most likely indicate that some kind of
dual-use goods, at the very least, were indeed found on board the
Syrian airliner. And even if they were not purchased in Russia, it is
highly probable, if only in view of the existence of a customs union
and the absence of barriers on the border with Kazakhstan and Belarus,
that, all the same, the attempt to import them into Syria took place
specifically through the Moscow airport.
>From the viewpoint of Turkey, which has in effect entered into a
limited but actual military conflict with the Syrian Army, responding
with strikes against mortar shells dispatched from Syrian territory,
the delivery of any military products to the Al-Asad regime is an
unfriendly gesture. And Moscow, for its part, is categorically
displeased with Turkey’s excessively active and aggressive role in the
Syrian crisis.
In effect, it is a question of a clash specifically between two
ambitious politicians – Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, who claims a leading role in the Near and Middle East and
also in the Black Sea region. Previously their ambitions were rather a
reason for rapprochement. Relations between Russia and Turkey, which
Moscow had previously regarded with misgivings as a NATO country and a
traditional opponent in the Black Sea region, began to develop very
actively under Putin and Erdogan. In direct proportion to the decline
in the Turkish ruling elite’s interest in a strategic alliance with
Israel and in Ankara’s readiness to listen to advice from Washington.
Of course there could be no question of a Russian-Turkish alliance.
However, on such sensitive issues as the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh,
the situation in Georgia, and the attitude towards a possible military
conflict between the West and Iran, Moscow and Anka ra understood one
another very well. As players of approximately equal weight in the
region, for the time being they treated each other with respect and
tried to decide the fate of “minor countries” on the basis of
consensus. Not even the pipeline projects in the Black Sea region
could make Putin quarrel with Erdogan.
But Syria could do so; here the interests of Russia and Turkey came
into such direct conflict that it cannot be concealed merely by
postponing an official visit “for technical reasons.” Both Erdogan and
Putin regard themselves as regional leaders, and moreover in a
personal capacity. And if the Turkish leader thinks that Syria, as, to
put it bluntly, a former Turkish colony, unconditionally falls within
the zone of Turkey’s vital interests and that the non-complaisant
regime of Bashar al-Asad should be eliminated, Putin believes that as
the heir to the USSR Russia has the right to respect for its interests
in Syria. Not only that, it has the right to the preservation of its
strategic allies in the region, of whom Bashar al-Asad is the last.
And Russia is prepared to fight for him, especially since the Syrian
president himself is displaying the readiness and ability to hold on
to power.
That being so, there is already a political conflict between Russia
and Turkey. The only question is when it will come to the surface and
be officially acknowledged by the two countries’ Foreign Ministries.
And this hypothetical conflict must clearly be taken into account in
formulating all strategic plans and analysing the situation in the
region. Although from a historical viewpoint it is only a return to
the status quo that existed during the period of existence of the two
empires – Turkish and Russian. And the resumption of imperial
ambitions leads inevitably to the revival of the conflicts of the
past.
[Translated from Russian]
From: A. Papazian