Ankara increased its efforts for a ceasefire Ukraine and to ensure Russia’s invasion to the country do not escalate to a point that would pose a threat to Turkey. However, neither Turkey’s nor other countries’ efforts can soften Russian President Vladimir Putin.
President Tayyip Erdogan’s effort to persuade Putin to a ceasefire and humanitarian corridor during a 1-hour phone call on March 6 hit the wall as Putin stated “not until Ukraine accepting Russia’s demands”. The day before Erdogan, Israeli President Naftali Bennet was in Moscow to persuade Putin. They talked for 3 hours, but in vain. It was Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia on March 3, French President Emmanuel Macron on March 3, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 2, who all failed to get Putin order to stop the invasion of Ukraine. Temporary ceasefires can be tricky, the last one lasting 40 minutes. What encourage Putin is that on March 3, US President Joe Biden, followed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on March 4, rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s request for a no-fly zone to be declared in Ukraine.
Efforts to stop Putin continue, but…
In fact, Zelensky’s demand amounts escalating the state of war beyond the territory of Ukraine and the outbreak of the NATO-Russia war, which could engulf Turkey, perhaps use of atomic weapons, which everyone feared. There are those who provoke this, especially among American politicians who want to get the support of the military industry and oil and gas lobbies in the US midterm elections in the fall.
Erdogan has also accelerated his diplomatic contacts in recent days. Before Putin, he met with European Council President Charles Michel, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on March 5, Zelensky and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on March 4. In the coming days, the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog on March 9-10 is now important for the Ukraine Crisis as well as the Middle East. Because Israel is also active for Ukraine.
Bennet, who visited Putin in Moscow on Saturday, March 5, met with Zelensky right after. One of Israel’s goals is to liberate the Jews of Ukraine from the conflict zone, while at the same time changing the population balance by resettling them in the occupied Palestinian territories. On March 4, the plane carrying 100 Jews from Ukraine landed in Israel; media coverage indicate that the number would reach 10 thousand.
The economy worsens as the crisis drags on
The world’s effort is to stop Putin. It is as if everyone is ready for making concessions to stop Russia. The US and EU are announcing economic sanctions that will shake the Russian economy, but while they are in the process of being implemented, the Russian military continues to advance. As the crisis dragged on, those who hoped that the economy would revive after the Covid-19 outbreak faced the reality of war. The longer the crisis drags on, the less likely it is for the economies to recover, except perhaps in the arms and petrogas sectors.
Turkey has an even more special vulnerability. Turkey has been caught by the Ukraine crisis in the middle of an economic crisis in which it is already trying to get out of. Oil prices, gas prices, wheat, sunflower oil, diesel, gasoline and electricity prices are a burden for Erdoğan and the AKP government. On the one hand, Erdogan wants to attract Western capital, which has withdrawn from Russia, to Turkey. This also has the dimension of providing support to the 2023 election campaign through the contractors that have close relations with the AKP. The opposition’s concern is not the investment coming to Turkey, but the possibility of the money flowing towards Erdogan’s election campaign. Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu repeated his promise to Fikret Bila, “to hold Erdogan’s oligarchs into an account”.
Montreux Convention changed the foreign policy
The Ukraine crisis enabled the United States to give full support to the Montreux Convention, which it had been trying to break for years, for the first time. US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, with whom Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın spoke on the phone on March 5, conveyed his satisfaction to Habertürk reporter Sena Alkan on March 6 that Turkey implemented Montreux and “does not make the Straits a part of the war”. Until the Ukraine crisis, Russia was saying the same thing.
But until the Ukraine crisis, certain names from the ruling AKP sneered at the Montreux Convention signed in 1936, during Atatürk’s period, with shallow excuses such as “We can’t make money from the Straits”. Now they come to senses.
Although it may seem difficult to stop Putin with diplomacy – except for the intervention of China – efforts continue: it is what it should be. The Ukraine crisis also brought the Foreign Ministry, which had been underestimated until recently, to come to the fore again.
The right foreign policy is a support to the economy.
