The background to this two-chair policy is Erdoğan’s own great power fanaticism; he doesn’t want to further weaken the battered Turkish economy. With a trade volume of 26 billion dollars, Russia is one of the most important partners. Almost five million Russians vacation in Turkey every year. Ankara therefore did not participate in the sanctions, and now Erdoğan is even benefiting from them. A number of oligarchs have parked their sanctioned assets in Turkey, and IT companies that have fled Russia are being deliberately lured to Turkey. And the rich Russians, who are currently buying Turkish real estate en masse, are being offered “sanction-free” Turkish citizenship as a counter-deal.
leverage
In addition, Russia also has leverage in its hands – Turkey’s dependence on gas and wheat. The fact that Russian ships with wheat from occupied territories were not stopped, and even looked the other way when Turkish customers bought this wheat, is probably due to this.
The prospects for a deal are correspondingly poor. “It’s doomed to fail,” says Dubowy. Kyiv will not comply with Moscow’s demand to demin the port of Odessa – it is the only one left in Ukrainian hands; Kyiv fears an attack. Moscow will not like Zelensky’s counter-suggestion that demining should only be carried out under Turkish and British supervision. And neither did the British: “If there were to be an attack, two NATO countries would be involved.”
The peace talks that Ankara has been pushing for months are just as hopeless. “Russia only started it to distract internationally,” said Dubovy. Moscow is pursuing the same war aims as on the first day. “And that includes regime change in Kyiv.”
