MOSCOW — Against a backdrop of
rising tensions between Turkey and the West, Presidents Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan
of Turkey pledged on Tuesday to repair relations after nine months of
open antagonism.
Although their meeting in St.
Petersburg on Tuesday produced little beyond vows of friendship and
cooperation, the symbolism of the two former antagonists coming together for a
friendly talk was enough to raise alarms in Western capitals. Besides being a member
of the NATO alliance, Turkey is vital to Europe’s efforts to stanch the flow of
migrants from Syria and Afghanistan.
Washington and Ankara, long at
odds over American support of the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, have had a series of
problems lately. Anti-Americanism has been on the rise in Turkey, amid
accusations that the United Statesplayed a role in the failed coup in
Turkey and widespread resentment of the White House’s criticism of the
resulting crackdown.
Turkish officials have been
further infuriated by President Obama’s reluctance to hand over Fethullah
Gulen, a reclusive Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania whom Mr. Erdogan has
accused of leading the coup attempt.
For Mr. Putin, who has made
little secret of his ambitions to weaken NATO and crack European unity, the
opportunity to forge a new, closer relationship with a humbled Mr. Erdogan was
probably deeply satisfying, and a vindication of his decision to intervene
militarily in Syria.
No one predicted a radical
shift in relations, at least not immediately. Russia and Turkey have been on
opposite sides of the Syrian conflict, and the two leaders had been at each
other’s throats since November, when Turkey shot down a Russian
warplane that it said had violated its airspace on the Syrian border.
After the jet was shot down,
Mr. Putin called Mr. Erdogan a back-stabber and demanded an apology, which was
refused.
That episode drew an angry
response from Moscow, which banned most fruit and vegetable imports from Turkey
and halted the flow of millions of Russian tourists. Although Russian gas sales
to Turkey continued, the countries’ $30 billion in annual trade decreased by 43
percent, Mr. Putin said.
“It is true that we lived
through a complicated moment in our interstate relations,” Mr. Putin said at a
joint news conference televised from St. Petersburg. “But we all would like to
— and we feel that our Turkish friends want the same — overcome those
complications.”
Feeling increasingly isolated
this summer, Mr. Erdogan wrote a letter in June offering the apology Mr.
Putin had demanded for the downing of the Russian jet. With that done, steps
could begin toward a normalization of relations.
Efforts to restore ties then
accelerated after the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, after which Mr. Putin was
the first leader to call to offer support. “It was very important from a mental
perspective, this kind of psychological support,” Mr. Erdogan said at the news
conference.
Any future agreements between
the two countries could have significant repercussions for the Middle East and
Europe. Mr. Erdogan most likely hopes to use the leverage of improved relations
with Russia to force a better deal with Europe over the migrant crisis.
European leaders have joined the United States in criticizing the sweeping arrests that followed the failed
coup.
Closer ties with Russia also
carry the potential to create tensions within NATO that Mr. Putin would be
happy to exploit. Ultimately, Moscow would like to draw Turkey into its orbit
and into the security and trade organizations it is promoting in Asia, although
such a shift is not expected anytime soon.
“Erdogan can use Russia as a
trump card in his negotiations with the West,” said Aleksandr D. Vasilyev, an
expert on Russian-Turkish ties at the Institute for Oriental Studies in Moscow.
“For him, the main goal is the West, not Russia.”
If the White House was uneasy
about the potential warming of relations between Turkey and Russia, nobody was
saying so publicly. At the State Department on Tuesday, officials referred
questions about the meeting to the Turkish government, and argued that the
meeting itself had not changed the American calculus on the Middle East or
Europe.
“We don’t view this as a
zero-sum game,” said Elizabeth Trudeau, a State Department spokeswoman. She
noted that Turkey and Russia were both members of the United States-led
coalition fighting the Islamic State, and had both been involved in the effort
to end Syria’s civil war. “There’s a lot of common goals, common interests
there.”
“I don’t think it’s a question
at all that our relationship with Turkey would be weakened at all by this,” Ms.
Trudeau added.
She said she had no update on
Turkey’s request for the United States to extradite Mr. Gulen, a “legal,
technical process” about which American officials have been in direct contact
with the Turkish authorities. The administration, Ms. Trudeau said, feels
anti-American rhetoric is “unhelpful” to the United States’ relationship with
Turkey. “We believe our relations and our partnership and our friendship with
Turkey is strong,” she said.
As for Russia and Turkey,
Syria remains a major potential fault line, despite the pledges to work
together. Mr. Putin noted that the views of the two sides “do not always
coincide” when it comes to Turkey’s southern neighbor. Mr. Erdogan is a bitter
enemy of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and has insisted that he
step down before peace negotiations can begin. Russia, though, is a longtime
ally of Mr. Assad’s, and it intervened with Iran in the Syrian conflict to
bolster his fortunes.
Yet the Kremlin also signaled
on Tuesday that it was in Syria to stay. Mr. Putin called on Russia’s
Parliament to approve an extended deployment of the Russian Air Force at
Khmeimim Air Base outside Latakia, Syria, where its planes have flown sorties
for almost a year to bolster Mr. Assad. Parliamentary approval is virtually
guaranteed.
“This is a demonstration that
Russia has come to Syria for a very long time,” said Aleksandr M. Golts, a
Russian military analyst. “This is a demonstration that it will support Assad
and that it is ready to tie itself to a regime that is involved in a bloody
civil war.”
Russia would like Turkey to
seal its borders and stem the flow of fighters and weapons to the insurgents,
and to reverse its demand that Mr. Assad must go. Ankara wants Moscow to stop
bombing its insurgent allies; to lessen support for the Kurds; and to halt the
bombing of civilian populations, which drives refugees into Turkey.
As a possible sign of good
will, a major Kurdish representative office closed in Moscow on Sunday,
although the local representative said it was because of rent costs rather than
politics.
In the bleak days, planning
was suspended on the Turkish Stream pipeline meant to deliver Russian gas to
Europe, as well as on the Akkuyu nuclear power plant that Russia is building in
southern Turkey.
Russia’s gas industry,
starting with Gazprom, the state-controlled
behemoth, is eager to get the Turkish Stream back on track, because other
routes to Europe have been blocked, and Turkey is just as keen on becoming a
hub for gas distribution.
“I think the interests of
Gazprom and the energy companies are the cornerstone of what is happening,”
said Mr. Vasilyev, the analyst.
On Tuesday, the two leaders
said they were planning to restart all that. Mr. Erdogan repeated their
pre-crisis pledge to eventually increase annual trade between the countries to
$100 billion.
“Both
countries are committed and determined to returning our relationship to its
pre-crisis level,” Mr. Erdogan said at the news conference.
Mr.
Putin said Mr. Erdogan had pledged to grant the Akkuyu project the status of a
“strategic investment,” helping it avoid taxes and reap other benefits.
Russia
agreed to lift sanctions that had barred some agricultural imports and had
stopped the flow of millions of Russian tourists.
As
recently as May, the “complications,” as Mr. Putin called them, meant that
Turkey in general, and Mr. Erdogan in particular, were often portrayed as enemy
No. 1 on Russia’s state-run television.
For all
the professed warmth during the talks with Mr. Erdogan, Russia seemed to drop
one subtle hint that things were not entirely back to normal.
Greece
and Turkey share a long, ancient enmity, and Russian news reports noted that
Mr. Putin had met his Turkish counterpart in a restored czarist palace on the
outskirts of St. Petersburg.
They
met in the Greek sitting room.
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