Tensions between Turkey, Russia rise
Moscow seems to back Assad rather than fight militants.
Turkish premier’s bid to establish Syrian safe zone crumbles under Russian airstrikes.
— Tensions between Russia and Turkey rose Tuesday over the Russian bombings of Syrian rebels and multiple violations of Turkish airspace, which have undercut Turkey’s goals in the Syrian civil war.
“Our positive relationship with Russia is known,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday during a visit to Brussels. “But if Russia loses a friend like Turkey, with whom it has been cooperating on many issues, it will lose a lot, and it should know that.”
Aside from blunt warnings, however, there appears to be little Erdogan can do about Russia’s assertive military actions in Syria, which have upended his priorities to oust the Syrian leader, Bashar Assad, and establish a buffer zone on Syria’s border with Turkey.
While in many ways close to Russia, Erdogan is now leaning more heavily on his NATO allies, reflecting the shifting forces buffeting Turkey as it copes with the military, economic and humanitarian fallout of Syria’s war.
“An attack on Turkey means an attack on NATO,” Erdogan said.
Turkey, which from the outset of the war more than four years ago backed rebel groups in the belief that Assad could be quickly toppled, finds itself powerless to shape events in Syria.
Erdogan, in Brussels this week for talks with European leaders over the migrant crisis convulsing Europe, continued to push for a safe zone in northern Syria as the only acceptable solution to create stability in Syria and discourage refugees increasingly leaving Turkey on perilous sea journeys for Europe.
Underscoring the degree of Turkish concern about Russia’s military involvement in Syria, which seemed to expand this week when Russian officials in Moscow suggested Russian “volunteer” fighters would be sent to Syria, officials in Ankara, the Turkish capital, predicted a new influx of refugees. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that up to 1 million more Syrians could arrive in Turkey, which is already straining under the weight of nearly 2 million Syrian refugees.
At first Russia suggested that its priority was fighting the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, an aim shared by the United States. But Russia has deployed military equipment, such as ground-toair missiles and interceptor jets, that has no use against militant groups that do not have an air force. This made clear that Russia’s priority is to buck up Assad.