Turkey’s longtime leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been gradually leaning more pro-Western since winning a hard-fought presidential election in May. Moscow reacted coolly to Ankara’s willingness to recognize Sweden’s NATO membership, but Turkey’s transfer to Kiev of five Ukrainian commanders held by Russian forces and Erdogan’s comments in support of Ukraine joining NATO sparked outrage.
Moscow is currently in no position to tolerate a deterioration in its relations with Turkey, and it is also important for Erdogan to avoid this in order to continue to benefit from Moscow’s mediation with the West. His leaning towards the West is also driven by domestic factors, such as a deep economic crisis that requires huge investments that only the West can provide.
Erdogan’s pre-election plans focused on diverting Turkish voters’ attention from the country’s troubled economy, particularly the lira’s one-fifth fall against the dollar in recent years and sky-high inflation, which hit an annual 85 percent rate last November.
Flaunting Turkey’s military achievements and uncompromising rhetoric toward the West were intended to demonstrate Turkey’s growing international influence, allowing Erdogan to limit references to socio-economic issues and portray Turkey as carving out its own path.
But soon after the election, Turks had to face reality: the Turkish lira continued to plummet against the dollar, falling nearly 30% within a month of election day, and consumer prices in June were 38% higher than in June the previous year.
In response to this situation, President Erdogan used his reelection as an opportunity to abandon the artificially low interest rate policy and embark on the path of economic liberalization. After the new governor took office, the Turkish Central Bank raised interest rates from 8.5% to 15%, the first time in 27 months.
However, this is not enough to comprehensively stabilize the Turkish economy, which is heavily dependent on foreign investment. Turkey badly needs foreign capital inflows, and the largest investors in the Turkish economy continue to be Western countries, primarily the Netherlands, the United States and the United Kingdom, which together account for around 30 percent.
Moreover, a significant portion of Turkey’s exports go to Western countries: even after record growth in trade with Russia, Russia still accounts for only 3.7 percent of Turkish exports, lagging far behind the West.
In this climate, Erdogan has realized he needs to pivot to the West to stabilize his economy, but severing ties with Russia, which became Turkey’s largest importer last year, is not an option.
In addition to economic problems, Erdogan must also contend with municipal elections due to begin in March next year, when he will need to win over pro-Western urban voters to win back major cities such as Ankara and Istanbul from the opposition.
Notably, after the election, President Erdogan once again raised the issue of Turkey’s integration into the European Union, flat Turkey demanded Sweden’s accession to NATO in exchange for opening the door to the EU.
The European integration talk is primarily intended as Erdogan’s way of showing off to attract Western investment and garner domestic support in pro-Western cities ahead of municipal elections, so the issue is unlikely to become a new sticking point in Turkey-Russia relations.
There is also no reason to expect that Turkey’s recognition of Sweden’s NATO membership will lead to tensions between Moscow and Ankara: Turkish opposition has long been an obstacle to Swedish membership, but in fact this issue was fundamentally resolved at the NATO summit in Madrid last year, when Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed the relevant memorandum of understanding.
Erdogan was simply buying himself time, having stoked anti-Western sentiment during his presidential election. Now that he has been re-elected, he is free to formally announce the agreement, especially since the US sweetened the deal by supplying Turkey with F-16 fighter jets.
Turkey’s approval of Sweden’s membership came as no surprise to the Kremlin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged. “Turkey is determined to fulfill its obligations. This is no secret for us and we do not look at it through rose-colored glasses,” he said.
A further blow to Moscow was Turkey’s decision, during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent visit to Istanbul, to extradite to Ukraine five captured commanders of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion. The five commanders were captured by Kremlin forces and transferred to Turkey with the assurance that they would not return to Ukraine until the end of the war.
In the Kremlin, Ankara’s decision was seen as a “violation of existing agreements,” but Erdogan said that upon learning of Turkey’s decision, Russia was “initially upset, but after learning the details, the situation improved.”
The episode shows once again how much Russian-Turkish relations depend on the personal relationship between Russian President Putin and President Erdogan. Contacts between the two countries are often informal, and the Azov agreement was likely a non-binding one, which Erdogan took advantage of.
That is not to say that the incident has had no impact: the transfer of the Azov commanders, combined with Turkey’s public support for Ukraine’s membership in NATO, prompted harsh statements from Russia, but so far Moscow has limited itself to verbal criticism.
By pivoting to Kiev, the Turkish president is essentially testing Moscow’s new red line: How strongly will Russia respond as it tries to thwart a Ukrainian counterattack and recover from the Wagner mercenary uprising?
The transfer of Azov and his men to Ukraine also appeared to be an attempt to pressure Moscow to extend the grain agreement, which expired on July 17. The agreement, brokered by Turkey, allowed Ukrainian grain ships to leave the port of Odessa unhindered. Currently, Russian leaders refuse to extend the agreement, but given the transactional nature of Russian-Turkish relations, it is still possible that the two countries can come up with an alternative.
In any case, the Kremlin’s cautious response indicates that Russia is currently not in a position to escalate tensions with Turkey, which is Moscow’s only real intermediary in its relations with the West and Kiev, as well as one of its main economic partners.
Erdogan has also not forgotten the support he received from Moscow during his election campaign (for example, Moscow granted Turkey a $20 billion gas payment deferral), the close economic ties between the two countries, and the ability of Russia to pressure NATO allies. Thus, the two sides will likely continue to maintain this delicate balance while avoiding serious escalation.
