Turkey's Erdogan wants to play both sides in the Ukraine war. Putin isn't having it.
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- Erdoğan offered to mediate the Russia-Ukraine war, but the Kremlin declined the proposal.
- Turkey's pro-Western tilt and Ukraine support have strained the Erdoğan-Putin relationship.
- Economic woes and defense ties with Ukraine challenge Turkey-Russia partnership.
Turkey's President Tayyip Erdoğan has long been eyeing the role of peacemaker in Russia's war with Ukraine.
Erdoğan most recently pursued this ambition again on Wednesday when he told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ankara could help end the war, Reuters reported, citing the Turkish presidency.
The two leaders were speaking on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kazakhstan, which Putin is attending in person.
But Putin appears cool to Erdoğan's advances.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesperson, told local media it was "impossible" for the Turkish leader to play peacemaker.
Peskov did not elaborate on the reason, but there are new cracks in Turkey and Russia's relationship as Erdoğan navigates a years-long economic crisis and a new political landscape at home after his party lost local elections earlier this year.
Putin criticized Turkey for tilting to West
Turkey is a NATO member, but it has been balancing its relations with Russia, Ukraine, and the West through the war while acknowledging Ukraine's territorial sovereignty.
"One of the main irritants for the Kremlin is Ankara's position on the war in Ukraine. While Turkish statements in support of Ukraine's territorial integrity have never been to Moscow's liking, they have not prompted a backlash," Ruslan Suleymanov, a research fellow at ADA University in Azerbaijan, wrote on Wednesday.
But Erdoğan and Putin also have a personal relationship, and both have referred to each other as a "dear friend." Erdoğan has even said he trusts Russia as much as he trusts the West.
However, "the special personal partnership between Putin and Erdoğan is deteriorating rapidly," Suleymanov wrote in his post for the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
Just last month, Putin publicly criticized Turkey by alluding to a partnership between a Turkish defense company and Ukraine.
"I would like to note that Turkey is cooperating with Ukraine in some spheres," Putin said in a meeting with global news agencies. He then alleged that Ukrainian drones were attacking gas pipelines supplying Turkey.
He also threw shade on Ankara's economic tilt to the West, saying "it seems to me that the economic bloc of the Turkish government has shifted focus to borrowing loans, attracting investment and receiving grants from Western financial institutions."
He added the warning if "this is connected to restrictions on Türkiye's trade and economic ties with Russia, the Turkish economy will lose more than it can gain."
In 2022, a Russian state-owned company transferred $20 billion to a subsidiary to build an important nuclear power plant in Turkey. A Turkish official told Bloomberg it was a goodwill gesture from Putin for Erdoğan's brokering of a deal to export gains out of Ukraine. In 2023, Russia agreed to defer Turkish payments for $600 million worth of natural gas exports.
"The Kremlin was clearly counting on Erdoğan to repay the favor upon reelection. Instead, amid difficult economic conditions at home, the Turkish president has adopted a much more pro-Western course than Moscow had anticipated," wrote Suleymanov.
Other issues standing in the way of Turkey and Russia's relationship include an F16 jet deal with the US and slowing bilateral trade due to US secondary sanctions.
Turkey also backed Sweden's bid to join NATO and joined a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland last month, which Russia did not join and called "absurd."
Ankara and Moscow are still playing nice, but Putin has repeatedly postponed a trip to Turkey that was first scheduled for February — a sign that the two countries' relationship "relationship is worsening dramatically," wrote Suleymanov, who expects the rift between the two this time to be serious and long-lasting.
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