Erdogan cited Kurdish forces in Tel Rifaat and Manbij, two cities in northwestern Syria where Russian and Iranian forces are present, as justification for expanding Turkey’s zone of control in the country. “What we expect from Iran and Russia is to support Turkey in its fight against terrorist organizations,” he told a news conference after the meeting. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Erdogan against further invasion during talks in his office, saying “a military invasion of Syria will benefit the terrorists.” The visit to Tehran provided Erdogan with an opportunity to reaffirm ties with both Tehran and Moscow, along with many opportunities to reach out to Moscow for cooperation on key issues. Putin and Erdogan greeted each other warmly at the start of their bilateral talks, despite the brief moment the Turkish leader kept his counterpart waiting. The talks gave Erdogan a chance to secure Moscow’s support for a tentative agreement to evacuate grain through the Black Sea with a control center in Istanbul, with UN-backed talks expected to resume in Istanbul this week. “With your intercession we moved forward. It is true that not all issues have been resolved yet, but the fact that there is movement is already good,” Putin told Erdogan. The Turkish president later referred to his counterpart as “my dear friend Putin” during a roundtable discussion on Syria. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, Turkish authorities have insisted on balancing the country’s NATO membership with its longstanding relationship with Moscow. Turkey hosted peace talks between Russia and Ukraine and sold Ukraine armed drones for use against Russian forces. Haluk Bayraktar, who heads the company that makes the TB2 drones used in Ukraine, told CNN shortly before Erdogan arrived in Tehran that his company would never sell drones to Russia, as “we support Ukraine, the sovereignty and its resistance”. But Turkey has refused to join sanctions against Russia, has increased purchases of Russian oil since the invasion and continues to promote the construction of a nuclear power plant by Russian state company Rosatom, under threat from Western sanctions on Sberbank. main supporter of the project. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST “Russia cannot afford not to engage with Turkey. They want a relationship with Turkey as a NATO ally – that would not change even if Putin and Erdogan step aside tomorrow,” said Hanna Notte, an analyst at the Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Vienna. “But the fact that they deal with the issues so effectively and closely, you can underestimate the Putin-Erdogan relationship,” he added, saying the leaders share elements of anti-Western sentiment that has fueled a long personal relationship. “They share a view of the world as multipolar, where countries outside the West should have a say in how things work.” However, Erdogan’s approach to foreign policy is based on showing that Turkey is acting independently, putting its own interests first. That helps his appeal to domestic audiences ahead of elections expected next year, where Erdogan faces growing opposition. Despite previously lifting objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO and securing the lifting of some arms sales in the process, Erdogan this week repeated threats to “freeze” their membership if Turkish demands are not met. At a NATO summit in Madrid in late June, Erdogan’s tactics earned him a meeting with US President Joe Biden, who declared his support for sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey despite continued opposition of Congress. Last week, the Turkish president leaned on Putin during a phone call in which he pushed for a Russian deal on the UN Security Council’s cross-border assistance mechanism that provides vital aid to more than 2 million Syrians in rebel-held areas in northwest. softening Russian threats to veto renewed aid. “There’s all this leverage coming together because of Ukraine and all these crises at the same time. It would be surprising if Erdogan doesn’t try to wring something out of this moment, as he does,” said Aaron Lund, of the Washington-based Century Foundation think tank. “Under Erdogan, especially in the second half of his administration, Turkey always instigates crises and then gets something in return to stop them. That’s been the modus operandi all along,” Lund said. “It damages Turkey’s position in many countries. We have witnessed a serious lack of appreciation for this in Congress and the EU parliament, for example. But Erdogan doesn’t care, or doesn’t seem to. It can show the results to help public opinion and it benefits domestically – plus the benefits to Turkey in real terms of foreign policy, they really do work,” he said.
