Political analyst about the escalation of the Russian-Turkish relations
Russia’s political return to the Middle East worries Turkey. A few days ago, breaking the Turkish border by the Russian aircraft further exacerbated the situation. Turkey intimidates to abandon the purchase of Russian gas, as well as announcing that it would cease some business partnerships with Russia.
In the conversation with Aravot, political analyst Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan interprets Turkey’s this kind of stance as follows, “For many years, Turkey was planning to carry out various operations in Syria and Iraq to increase its influence and weaken the positions of the Kurdish people. Today, Russia carries out military actions in the region, and Turkey’s long-developed plans truly failed. In this case, official Ankara should have to do everything for giving political counteraction to Russia’s operations.”
The political analyst believes that Russia is not afraid of Turkey’s intimidations, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin, after his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Moscow, realized that Turkey would not support him, on the contrary, will oppose his led policies in the Middle East. “Russia is taking all this into consideration and will not take much attention to these intimidations and will continue its operations in the Middle East. Russia’s task is one – to contribute to the enhancement of the Assad regime and the elimination of terrorist structures in Syria. Will Russia reach its goal? Time will tell. At this point, it is clear that the Bashar Assad regime has military successes in Syria supported by Russia, there is also the Islamic Republic of Iran and also to some extent, China’s support,” says Mr. Melik-Shahnazaryan, adding that thus Russia wants to enter into a new coalition with the countries, which have similar stances on the policy run in the Middle East. “I think that if the choice is between Turkey and the entire Middle East, then Russia will choose the Middle East and will fight for having strong positions in this very region.”
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Our interlocutor reminds that the escalation of relations between Turkey and Russia is not new. “It was escalated still during the annexation of the Crimea to Russia. Turkey is trying to act as an independent player in the region by cooperating with the United States. Today, entering into a conflict with Russia, it is trying to do somehow win the confidence of the West.”
Involvement of allied Russian and Turkey, according to Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan, will have its impact on Armenia too. “I do not exclude that Armenia in some respect can suffer from the Russian-Turkish conflict, because in that case, less is left for Turkey than using the policy of creating new zones of intimidation for Russia, and as such, the South Caucasus is a convenient place if, of course, the Turkish authorities will be able to have an adequate impact on Azerbaijan and would try to incite an Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, realizing that the destabilized situation in the South Caucasus will hamper Russia’s operations in the Middle East. This may also be a certain threat to the Russian Caucasus. There were a lot of internal dissents.” The political analyst does not make positive projections in the event of improvement of relations between Russia and Turkey. “Turkey does everything to have its role in the region and to emphasize its political presence, which so far has not succeeded also because Russia also ambitions in this region and is achieving success.”
Armenia’s involvement in this process, according to the political analyst, can cause problems for us. “Since these processes require a lot more resources than Armenia has. Of course, the attempts to be engaged in these conflicts can be dangerous for the Republic of Armenia. Providing a platform or implementing mediation initiative is quite different, but I think that Armenia’s authorities realize the limit of the country’s potentials and are trying to stay within this limit. In other words, not to contact and not to interfere because we ourselves are facing a military threat, and at the moment, there are phenomena intimidating Armenia’s security and we need to focus on neutralizing them.”
HRIPSIME HOVHANNISYAN
“Aravot” daily
