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05-08-2022
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet his Russian counterpart on Friday in Sochi, after brokering a grain shipment deal between Moscow and Kyiv and as a new Turkish military intervention in Syria remains a possibility.
The summit with Vladimir Putin comes in the same week that a ship carrying Ukraine grain was able to set sail, the first since the conflict began, under an agreement between the warring sides arranged by the United Nations and Ankara.
The Turkish leader’s international credentials have been bolstered by the agreement that resumes exports of Ukrainian and Russian agricultural products, easing the threat to global food security.
Erdogan’s trip his eighth to Russia since the start of 2019 follows a three-way meeting with Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran last month.
According to Ankara, regional and global developments will be on the agenda, as well as bilateral ties.
“By virtue of its role in the grain deal, Turkey has succeeded in positioning itself as Russia’s diplomatic conduit to the international community,” said Eyup Ersoy, visiting research fellow at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, King’s College London.
“This diplomatic rearrangement has shifted the relational asymmetry more in Turkey’s favour and is expected to curtail, to some degree, Russian resistance against Turkish policies and initiatives in issues of common concern.”
Analysts said Turkey’s principal focus would be Moscow’s acquiescence or at least its lack of opposition to a Turkish military operation in northern Syria.
Russia, a key backer of President Bashar al-Assad, controls most of the north Syrian air space.
Erdogan raised the prospect of another operation against Syrian Kurdish fighters in May.
“We are determined to eradicate the evil groups that target our national security from Syria,” he reiterated during the Tehran summit two weeks ago.
Tal Rifaat and Manbij, cities west of the Euphrates River controlled by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), are likely targets.
The Syrian group is linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a 38-year armed uprising against Turkey. The PKK is considered a “terror” group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Ankara has launched four cross-border operations into Syria since 2016 and controls land in the north with the goal of pushing away the YPG and establishing a 30-km (19-mile) secure zone.
An incursion in October 2019 into northeast Syria against the YPG drew widespread international condemnation.
“Erdogan wants a green light for a military operation in Syria,” said Kerim Has, a Turkish political analyst based in Moscow.
“As we saw at the Tehran summit, Iran and Russia are against this operation but I think Erdogan can persuade Putin. Many things depend on the domestic situation in Turkey because Erdogan wants to launch the operation before the elections so he can consolidate at least a few percentage points in the vote.” Turkey is experiencing its worst economic crisis in two decades annual inflation hit 79.6 percent on Wednesday and Erdogan faces presidential and parliamentary elections by June next year. (Int’l News Desk)
