Erdogan Says Bye-Bye Biden But Is Putin a Keeper?
Putin Erdoğ
After the fanfare, the anticlimax. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan quietly skipped town after his summit meeting with Vladimir Putin last week. There was not even an official statement about their discussions in Sochi.
The discreet departure was doubly odd. Erdogan is not one to miss an opportunity to show off his international standing, and this had been heralded as the most consequential meeting between the two men in years.
The province, on the border with Turkey, is home to 4 million people, and the Erdogan government fears a new wave of refugees fleeing the fighting. Turkey is already home to the world’s largest concentration of refugees — more than 3.7 million, according to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. Growing Turkish resentment about the presence of so many foreigners is a political liability for Erdogan, whose approval ratings are already sagging from widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the economy.
On the gas front, Turkey is negotiating the supply of 8 million cubic meters from Russia’s Gazprom at a time when prices are rising sharply thanks to Chinese demand. With winter approaching, Ankara is keen to nail down new contracts, and has been hoping Erdogan’s outreach to Putin will yield favorable terms.
But at Sochi, Putin offered only vague platitudes about the “fairly successful” Turkish-Russian cooperation in Syria and Libya, while holding out no promises on Idlib. Likewise, he mused that Turkey could feel “absolutely confident and stable” about the supply of Russian gas, but provided no assurances about the pricing.
As he burns his bridges with the U.S., Erdogan was hoping for more than mere blandishments from Putin. But their summit showed that the Russian president has his Turkish counterpart where he wants him. No wonder Erdogan skulked out of Sochi.
Bloomberg Opinion / Bobby Gosh
