Erdogan seizes every opportunity to appear before the public as the great peacemaker who could save the world from another Chernobyl
After six months of war in Ukraine, Turkey is the only bridge still standing between Kiev and Moscow. Since the first day of the invasion, the Ankara government has tried to mediate between the two sides, with whom it has strong economic and military ties. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has taken managing the crisis as a personal matter and knows that the success of this mission can help strengthen his figure abroad and especially before the elections in which he will play a position within ten months. The president does not pass up every opportunity to appear before the public as the great peacemaker who could save the world from another Chernobyl, citing the armed clashes around the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, in southeastern Ukraine, the largest in Europe.
Turkish mediation began in the early days of the war. In March, this country hosted the first face-to-face meeting between Ukraine’s foreign ministers, Dmitro Kuleba, and Russia, Sergei Lavrov, their first and only meeting to date. At the end of that month, two delegations from both countries met again to discuss the opening of humanitarian corridors, then came the massacre in Bucha, the process became complicated and the meetings were staggered, but the contacts never stopped.
The summer months have seen diplomacy intensify its efforts. In July, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov signed an agreement in Istanbul to unblock the departure of ships carrying Ukrainian grain and Russian fertilizers under the watchful eye of Erdogan and the Secretary General. of the UN, Antonio Guterres. A pact “to tackle the world’s famine”, the Turkish president said, and also a step towards a future peace agreement between Kiev and Moscow. More than a million tons of grain have already been exported in these weeks and Erdogan’s main goal is “to take advantage of the opportunities to turn the positive atmosphere created as a result of the agreement into permanent peace.”
In August, the figure of the Turkish president has become more widely known since he met Vladimir Putin in Sochi and traveled to Lviv to speak with Volodímir Zelensky. After this latest meeting, in which Guterres also took part, Erdogan stressed the importance of mediation between the two sides because “we do not want another Chernobyl to come”, referring to the instability created by the fighting around the Chernobyl factory. . , since March in Russian hands. A post shared by all world leaders.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chose Istanbul to manage its visit to Zaporizhzhya. The team of experts led by Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, met a delegation of Russian technicians here last week. The visit to the Ukrainian factory is “imminent”, the Italian diplomat told the media for whom “it is essential that our experts are there as soon as possible”. Zaporizhzhya is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and is on the front line. After a 24-hour disconnection, the power station was reconnected on Saturday and, according to Turkish media, this may be the sign that the experts’ visit will take place “in the coming days”.
“Erdogan has always had grandiose dreams that Turkey would be a regional power, if not a global one. It happened already during the Arab Spring or in the conflict in Syria. Seeing Turkey as a power is a fantasy because the economy is in tatters and the military might is exaggerated, but it’s a fantasy that works. We can see Erdogan’s Turkey as a person with an innocent mental disability. It can work, but it has to be controlled. As long as you keep daydreaming, it’s fine. If trying to act according to your dreams can be dangerous,” said Umut Özkirimli, associate researcher at CIDOB (Center for International Affairs of Barcelona). About how long this role between the two parties could last, Özkirimli thinks that “neither the West nor Russia can afford to lose Turkey, so they prefer an ambiguous ‘status quo’ to a total loss. Erdogan knows how to navigate through this.”
This ambiguity allows Turkey to position itself as a bridge between two countries with which it has strong ties. It was the main foreign investor in Ukraine in 2020 and 2021 and the role of the Turkish Bayraktar drone was crucial in stopping the advance of Russian troops towards the Ukrainian capital in the first phase of the war. At the same time, Russia supplies a third of Turkey’s gas imports and Rosatom, a Russian state-owned company, is responsible for developing Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, which is expected to produce about 10% of the country’s electricity by 2025.
At the height of the international sanctions against Moscow, the Turks have not joined the penalties against who their third trading partner is, but no one is raising their voices because they are the ones keeping the mediation channel with the Kremlin open. In Ankara, they are not afraid of threats of possible sanctions against their companies because they have not severed ties with Moscow.
“Ankara pursues three goals. It wants to help Ukraine avoid defeat, avoid open conflict with Russia, while showing solidarity with the West and increasing its regional diplomatic weight,” Rich Ouzen, Turkey expert at The Atlantic Council, said in a recent article. His colleague at the same center for strategic studies, Brenda Shaffer, also recalls that “Turkey is preparing its supply infrastructure to transport additional gas from Azerbaijan to Europe in the short and medium term. This is already working with countries like Bulgaria, to which Moscow has closed supplies, so gas from Azerbaijan via Turkey is now the only exclusive supply the Bulgarians get.”
Sooner or later, Ukrainians and Russians will sit down to negotiate peace. The distance or proximity of that moment depends on the course of the war, but also on the intensity of the contacts with which Turkey has worked since the first day of the invasion.
Source: La Verdad
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