Why Turkey frets over US-Russian relations
Will Turkey’s leaders have to wait for the next US president to challenge Russia in the manner they would like?
Turkey is deeply concerned with signs that the United States and Russia may come to an understanding to close the Turkish-Syrian border, which would have profound strategic and geopolitical implications.
In his well-received report titled “Russia in the Middle East: Moscow’s Objectives, Priorities, and Policy Drivers,” Carnegie Moscow Center Director Dmitri Trenin says, “For the foreseeable future, Moscow and Ankara are likely to be rivals or even adversaries. The Russian intervention in Syria, which was the actual cause of the rupture — the air incident was a pretext — has undercut Turkey’s policies in its near neighborhood and materially damaged its interests in Syria. As long as [Turkish President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains in charge and Russia stays on its present course, the Russian-Turkish relationship will be an exercise in conflict management, at best.”
