Turkey warns Putin ‘not to play with fire’
Ankara has been helping jihadists flourish in the region, and its decision to shoot down a Russian warplane was likely driven by political factors
MOSCOW: Russia slapped sanctions on Ankara on Friday as the war of words over a downed Russian warplane escalated, with Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan warning Russia not to “play with fire”.
Russia announced it was halting a visa-free regime for Turkish visitors, after threatening a raft of retaliatory economic measures to punish the Nato member state.
Tuesday’s incident has sent recriminations flying between two rival players in the Syrian war just as countries such as France are pushing for a broader coalition to try to defeat the Islamic State (IS).
The angry exchange has not been limited to official channels.
In Crimea, a group of young people gathered around a hay effigy with the face of Turkish President Erdogan set up on the main square of Simferopol.
Activists in Moscow, belonging to a youth wing of the conservative Rodina party, put a life-size inflatable doll of Mr Erdogan in a coffin and delivered it to the Turkish embassy.
Pictures on the group’s website also showed the activists laying several funeral wreaths with ribbons saying “From Russian patriots to US puppets” outside the embassy.
Police detained two organisers. They were let go when law enforcement discovered they were municipal lawmakers, the group said.
“We advise Russia not to play with fire,” Mr Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara, lashing out at Russia’s response to the downing as well as its support of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Mr Erdogan nevertheless said he wanted a direct meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin when the two leaders are in Paris next week for the UN climate summit.
But Moscow officially responded coolly, saying Turkey has yet to apologise for shooting down the jet on the Syrian border.
Turkey says the Su-24 warplane strayed into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings but Russia insisted it did not cross from Syria.
It is thought to be the first downing of a Russian plane by a Nato member in more than half a century.
One of the pilots was shot dead in Syria after parachuting out of the burning planel while the second was found safe and sound, and one Russian soldier was killed in a rescue operation.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Turkey had “crossed the line of what is acceptable” and warned the incident could severely undermine both its national and regional interests.
Moscow has ruled out any military response, but has pledged broad measures targeting entire sectors of the Turkish economy including tourism, agriculture and possibly key energy projects.
Mr Lavrov said Turkish nationals would require visas from Jan 1, after Mr Putin this week warned citizens not to travel to Turkey, a hugely popular destination for Russians.
“Russia is quite concerned with increasing terrorist threats in the Republic of Turkey,” Mr Lavrov added, after a spate of bloody attacks blamed on IS extremists there.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday gave ministers two days to work out a plan to curb cooperation with Turkish companies after Russia said it would tighten checks on food imports over alleged safety standard violations.
Moscow has also hinted the reprisals could hit two major projects with Turkey — a planned gas pipeline and a nuclear power plant.
Turkey is getting desperate. Under President Recep Tayip Erdogan and his party, the Justice and Development Party, its policies toward the conflict in Syria over the past four years have been misguided and costly. When conflict broke out in 2011, Ankara mistakenly underestimated the strength of the Assad regime and supported hardline Islamist groups seeking its downfall. In the process, Turkey also marginalised the Kurds and alienated regional powers like Iran.
Four years on, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad looks set to hold onto power and his regime will be a central part of a transition plan, one that foreign powers were negotiating last weekend. Turkey’s regional rival, Iran, is a key player which can no longer be ignored by the West. Not only does the pro-Assad alliance now have Russian support firmly on its side, but the international community is no longer focused on defeating the regime — instead, it is concerned with defeating jihadist groups like Isis.
The shift in focus is a significant drawback for Mr Erdogan. Years of support for, and investment in, Islamic fundamentalist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria) and Ahrar al-Sham are about to go to waste.
Ankara has played a significant role in allowing IS and other jihadists to flourish in Syria and the region. Turkey has acquiesced to jihadist groups entering Syria via Turkey as well as their use of Turkey as a transit point for smuggling arms and funds into Syria.
The Kurds in Syria, meanwhile, have established themselves as a reliable Western ally and have created, in the process, an autonomous Kurdish region that has reinvigorated Kurdish nationalism in Turkey and across the region — much to Turkey’s dismay as it continues a brutal military campaign to repress the Kurds.
In other words, Turkey has no interest in the peaceful settlement to the conflict in Syria that world powers are negotiating. As it gets desperate, Turkey will attempt to bring focus back on the Assad regime and reverse the losses it has made both in Syria and geopolitically. The decision to bring down the Russian jet is, therefore, likely to have had other political factors behind it — particularly since the jet, as far as we know, posed no immediate threat to Turkey’s national security.
Domestically, Mr Erdogan thrives on a climate of fear and uncertainty. This worked for him in the country’s snap elections earlier this month, during which he regained the majority he lost in June after months of bombings, violence and divisive rhetoric.
Ankara’s downing of the Russian jet may provide a useful diversion as it seeks to intensify its military campaign against the Kurds, particularly i n the Kurdish-dominated Mardin province, where MPs were assaulted in recent days. Two days ago, Selahattin Demirtas, head of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party who shot to international acclaim in the country’s national elections, survived an assassination attempt in Kurdish-dominated Diyarbakir.
These tactics will not be without longterm costs and will undermine the chances of peace in Syria as well as the West’s effort to defeat IS.
The West appeased and bolstered Mr Erdogan in Turkey in the run-up to the country’s elections, with the aim of securing a deal with Ankara on the refugee crisis. It may now regret that. Mr Erdogan is not only likely to drive a hard bargain but he may also walk away.
He has never cared much for the EU and has only sought engagement with the West when under pressure at home. But Turkey is not an indispensable ally and should not be considered as such. Unless the West starts to seriously exert pressure, Mr Erdogan will have little incentive to stop his damaging policies.