The recent tensions between Russia and Turkey seem to be over. It was only a few months ago that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was testing Moscow’s red lines by expressing a friendly attitude towards Ukraine. Now both Russian and Turkish governments are responding to the Middle East war in exactly the same way: by using it as a cudgel to attack Israel and its Western backers.
Now that Moscow and Turkey are on the same side of the barricades, they will likely seek to strengthen their ties and reach common ground on thorny regional issues, but that doesn’t mean each side won’t end up accusing the other of betraying them.
Erdogan made several decisions this summer that the Kremlin may view as hostile. During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Istanbul in July, the Turkish leader said Ukraine “deserves” to join NATO. Erdogan also handed over to Kiev the five commanders of Ukraine’s Azov regiment, who were in Turkey, as part of a Russian-Ukrainian prisoner swap.
At the time, the Kremlin was preoccupied with the onset of the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the Wagner mercenary rebellion and had to make do with verbal protests from its senior officials. Russia’s only serious response was to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Deal, despite Turkish efforts to negotiate an extension, including the personal intervention of President Erdogan.
Ankara understood that Moscow was in a weak position, but Erdogan was merely testing Moscow’s red lines. He was not seeking to radically worsen bilateral relations. Erdogan agreed to travel to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on September 4 to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though his original plans did not materialize. plan There was a lot of hope that Putin would visit Turkey. Contrary to expectations, the meeting did not revive the grain trade or actually produce any major results. Its main achievement was to show the world that relations between Moscow and Ankara are good.
Economic data is a vivid testament to the friendly relations between the two countries: trade between Russia and Turkey is set to grow by more than 80 percent to $62 billion in 2022, making Russia Turkey’s largest source of imports, and the figure is expected to be even higher this year.
But foreign policy remains a constant challenge, with disagreements over Syria, Libya and the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. Yet Russia and Turkey have managed to avoid open conflict in recent years. Now, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalating, the two countries are on the same side, something they haven’t seen on any other major international issue, and many are predicting a rapid improvement in relations between the two countries.
The Kremlin’s announcement of an October 24 phone call between Erdogan and Putin about Israel’s war with Hamas noted that Moscow and Ankara “have substantially overlapping positions and are focused on implementing the well-known two-state solution, which provides for the creation of an independent Palestine living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security.”
Their positions may be similar, but their motivations are very different. When Russia’s UN envoy, Vasily Nebenzia, said that Israel, an occupying power, has no right to defend itself, he was trying to portray Russia as one of the leaders of the so-called Global South. In contrast, Erdogan wants to lead the Islamic world.
Russia’s open support for Hamas is a relatively recent phenomenon, a direct result of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Specifically, this invasion led to a chill in relations with Israel and a warming of relations with Iran, Hamas’ main backer. Before the Israeli attack on October 7, the appearance of a Hamas delegation in Moscow could have been interpreted as Russia seeking to mediate between the Palestinian factions. But now Israel sees such contacts quite differently. Russia, with its stable alliance with Iran, is indifferent.
On the other hand, Erdogan has supported Hamas for many years, allowing Hamas fighters to reside in Turkey and giving them Turkish passports. The Turkish president himself comes from an Islamist background, and supporting Hamas is ideologically important to him. At the beginning of this war, Erdogan tried to go back and forth between Israel and Hamas (some reports said he expelled Hamas leaders from Istanbul), but he quickly abandoned that tactic and decided to fully support his Palestinian “brothers.”
Moscow and Ankara have come to the same decision, but through different paths, to sacrifice their relationship with Tel Aviv, which means neither can act as a mediator in the current conflict. Turkey’s recent proposal to set up a guarantor group to facilitate a settlement of the fighting seems unfeasible. Even Moscow has been hesitant about the idea.
At the same time, neither country’s interactions with Hamas have been particularly effective. Despite contacts with Hamas’ political leadership, neither Russia nor Turkey has succeeded in freeing any hostages. This contrasts with the more successful efforts of Egypt and Qatar, for example, which have been in contact with Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip. But the Russian and Turkish approaches have allowed them to make repeated criticisms of the West that are important to their domestic audiences.
By accusing the US of stoking chaos in the Middle East, Putin is strengthening his claim that the West is the source of all the misfortunes in Russia and the world. Similarly, Erdogan’s criticism of the West for trying to start a war between Christians and Muslims appeals to strong anti-NATO sentiment in Turkey.
Still, Erdogan’s comments don’t mean he wants to destroy NATO relations — far from it. It’s no coincidence that just two days after his angry pro-Hamas speech, Erdogan introduced a bill in parliament to approve Sweden’s membership in the Western military alliance, something Turkey has resisted so far.
Therefore, the Kremlin is unlikely to enlist Turkey in an anti-Western campaign on behalf of the Southern Hemisphere countries: if Erdogan needs to demonstrate his loyalty to a NATO member state (as Sweden did with its membership vote), he will do so without even looking back at Moscow.
An agreement on the Israeli-Hamas conflict would mean greater diplomatic cooperation between Russia and Turkey over, for example, the South Caucasus and Syria, but the improvement in relations is contingent and there are no guarantees against future conflict.
