By Vestnik Kavkaza
Last week, Vladimir Putin stated at the session of the Top Cooperation Council of Turkey and Russia: “We can have contradictions in certain issues, but it doesn’t lead to a worsening of our relations; contrariwise, we cooperate closer and try to find a common ground…Turkey is one of major foreign economic partners of our country; it takes 7th place in our foreign trade turnover. Russia is the second export market for Turkey after Germany.” Turkish Premier Recep Erdogan is sure that Russia and Turkey “have duties in the region, from the point of view of the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict, the situation in Syria, and development of the situation in Iraq. There are common steps which we should take. And our talks enabled us to establish a platform, a base for settlement of the problems.”
Despite moderate statements by Turkish Premier, it is obvious for many experts that the situation in the Middle East where Ankara claims leadership, is not very favorable.
Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Middle East Institute, thinks that “Iran appeared to be a winner in talks on the Iranian nuclear program, while the losers are the countries which are actual rivals of Iran, i.e. Saudi Arabia and Israel. The world is moving toward a collapse of the non-proliferation system, toward a nuclear race not at the level of superpowers, but at the level of small countries, and toward a big regional war. In a year Iran will get its nuclear bomb and later Saudi Arabia will receive nuclear weapons from Pakistan. Turkey and other players will join the nuclear race. If Iran doesn’t solve its problems with Israel, the Israelis will seriously strike the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Speaking about Russia’s positions in the Middle East, Satanovsky stated: “Our general turnover with the whole Arabic world is $3.2 billion. And there is Turkey, our turnover with Ankara is about $20 billion; we export gas to them, want to build a nuclear power station there. Thus, the whole Arabic world is adequate to Israel, from the Russian economic point of view. From the point of view of compatriots in Israel, more than a million people, of course sentimental, humanitarian, personal components of our relations are in favor of Israel. Moreover, the situation over the Russian language is wonderful in Israel, unlike the Baltic countries and many other states of the former USSR.”
From the point of view of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Satanovsky doesn’t see Arab lobby: “There are 2.5 people among the militaries who are interested in budget grants for a military base in Tartus, The Foreign Ministry is positive, calm and reasonable. And I think it is much more pro-Israeli than the State Department of the U.S.A., I don’t mention Europe.”
As for the other strategically important country in the region – Egypt, according to many observers, ties between Cairo and Moscow are progressing, and probably Russia might take a place of Turkey in Egypt, as Ankara’s positions weakened there because of its heavy criticism toward the Egyptian authorities.
At the same time, despite five economic agreements signed in Moscow by Erdogan and Putin, the majority of experts believe that economic approach between Moscow and Ankara doesn’t mean a political rapprochement.
