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| Putin and Erdogan in Istanbul yesterday |
Is President
Vladimir Putin amenable to the idea of losing Russia’s naval facility in the
Syrian port of Tartus and gaining access to the warm waters of the
Mediterranean through Turkey instead?
Murat Yetkin, the
influential editor-in-chief of Turkey’s Hurriyet
Daily News, mooted
the option this morning.
Putin yesterday said
Russia is working with Turkey to resolve the ongoing crisis in Syria. He made
the comment after his talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in
Istanbul during a one-day visit.
Talking at a joint news
conference following the two leaders' meeting, Putin sought to distance himself
from Damascus.
Putin said, “We are
neither protecting the regime in Syria nor acting as their advocate, but remain
worried about Syria’s future.”
He said, “The positions
of the Russian Federation and Turkey completely correspond regarding what has
to be attained (in Syria), but there is no shared approach as yet on the
methods” to realize it.
“We discussed this issue
today with our Turkish colleagues, and came up with some new ideas, which
require further analysis and planning,” the president said.
Erdogan told the press
conference Turkey and Russia shared a “strategic
perspective” that has put a stamp on their bilateral ties.
“Our multi-dimensional
[agreement] on the Black Sea Basin is the best example of the strategic
perspective between the two countries,” Erdogan said.
The
two leaders were anxious to send a message that differences over Syria will not
undermine deepening relations that are underpinned by a rapidly growing trade
relationship.
During
the Russian president's visit, a number of trade and diplomatic agreements were
signed, and a commitment was made to almost triple the current 30-to-40 billion
dollars in trade to $100 billion.
Turkish entrepreneurs
have made investments of more than $10 billion in Russia, said Erdogan.
He said Turkish
construction companies have taken on 1,400 projects worth $40 billion in
Russia. Erdogan also praised Russia’s $700 million capital flow to Turkey for
the construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant project.
A senior Turkish
official told The New York Times
Moscow was "softening" its "political tone" and would look
for ways of getting Assad to leave power.
Russian Deputy Foreign
Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said for the first time Moscow was ready to evacuate
thousands of its citizens from Syria in case of emergency.
"We’ve got plans for
every situation and have got a clear idea where our citizens are located,"
Bogdanov told the Itar-Tass news agency.
He said the Russian
embassy has been in contact with Russian citizens in various areas of Syria.
They are mostly Russian women married to Syrian nationals or diplomatic staff.
"In any case, several
planes will be needed. There are capabilities for that," he added.
According to Bogdanov,
Russian citizens may also leave Syria via Lebanon or Jordan.
"I
don't see any real problems with that now," he said, adding: "Due
to the situation, we recommend Russian citizens not to go to Syria."
The United Nations also
began pulling out non-essential staff from Syria and the European Union said it
reduced activities in Damascus "to a minimum" as regime forces
bombarded opposition strongholds with artillery and airstrikes in an
increasingly desperate attempt to keep rebel forces from advancing into
Damascus, the capital.
Hurriyet Daily News editor Murat
Yetkin suggests this morning that Moscow could lose its naval base in Tartus
with Assad’s exit, but it could gain much more valuable outlets to the warm
waters of the Mediterranean through Turkey. In his opinion:
On
the eve of the Crimean War in 1853, Russian
Tsar Nicholas described the declining
Ottoman Empire as “the sick man of Europe.”
The
Russian empire’s quest for “warm waters” was adopted as strategic policy a
century earlier under Peter the Great. In Soviet times, Josef Stalin espoused
the same strategy.
“That
is why the Turkish straits and the Turkish-Soviet border (as the
north-east-southwest corridor down to the Mediterranean) was considered a key
strategic point of Western defense,” once Turkey joined NATO in 1952.
Putin
can consider himself the inheritor of Peter the Great’s policy of gaining
access to the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea -- not through war, but
rather through cooperation for more trade.
Russia
may lose a naval base in Tartus with the Assad regime’s downfall, “but it gains
much more valuable outlets to southern markets through cooperation with Turkey.”
Both the
visiting Russian president and Erdogan voiced a shared “strategic” view of
Putin’s visit. That is an impressive plus for the prime minister of a NATO country.
“Erdogan
and Putin signed 11 cooperation agreements, from the opening up of Turkish and Russian
cultural promotion houses to a $20 billion nuclear power plant that will be
built in Akkuyu, on the Turkish Mediterranean coast.
“Erdogan
said both countries targeted raising bilateral Turkish-Russian trade to over
$100 billion dollars - from the current nearly $40 billion - over the next
seven to eight years.
“Russia
is already Turkey’s number one trading partner (on cumulative basis it is the
European Union) and the main trade item in this balance is Russian gas and oil.
Turkey is dependent on Russian gas for its electricity production more than
Russians themselves, and this dependency might become deeper with the sanctions
on Iran. Turkey is eyeing Russian gas and oil to compensate for the loss from
Iran over the winter months.
“With
nearly 4 million Russian tourists rushing to Turkish Mediterranean resorts
every year and ever increasing Turkish-Russian marriages, this long-range
relationship makes discrepancies over Syria, for example, smaller than they
actually are.
“For
the first time, Putin was very clear in saying Russia was not an advocate for
the regime in Syria, and one may expect a quicker disintegration of the
Damascus regime following these words.
“The
spirit of the new Turkish-Russian cooperation is to trade and to leave all
problematic areas aside, (to be dealt with by diplomats later). The motto may
not be ‘make war,’ but rather ‘make trade.’”
