With Russia’s war on Ukraine, Turkey has managed to turn the vulnerabilities of its shaky position between Russia and Ukraine (and the West) into diplomatic assets. As the grain-corridor deal shows, Turkey’s influential-if complicated-role in this war makes it likely that it will also play an influential role in whatever peace follows. Erdogan’s continued coordination with Russia on trade and Syria strikes some observers as unseemly, but given Turkish economic and regional concerns, it is prudent. Early provision of military aid, especially armed drones, helped blunt the Russian assault on Kyiv. On all three, the Turks have performed reasonably well.
We can measure the Turkish balancing act along three dimensions: helping Ukraine avoid defeat, avoiding open conflict with Russia while demonstrating solidarity with the West, and increasing Ankara’s regional diplomatic weight.
From what we’ve seen so far, how would you rate the success of Ankara’s diplomatic maneuvering? So we reached out to three of our experts- Rich Outzen and Yevgeniya Gaber, nonresident senior fellows at the Atlantic Council IN TURKEY program, as well as Brenda Shaffer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Global Energy Center-to make sense of Turkey’s delicate balancing act. Two weeks earlier, Erdogan had met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi-where they pledged to increase their cooperation.Īll this begs the question: How long can Erdogan continue playing both sides of this bitter conflict? The latest twist came on Thursday, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for talks. But Ankara’s complex relationship and economic partnership with Russia could also seriously damage its image in the West as a credible peacemaker in the conflict. Since day one of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has been caught in something of a geopolitical jam, carefully balancing ties with both sides.įor example, Turkish drones have played a key role in Kyiv’s ability to fend off the Kremlin’s troops.
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