By FP Staff
A file photo of Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan (R) with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Reuters
The conflict in Syria took another ugly turn on Monday night, after a 22-year-old Turkish policeman, Mevlut Mert Altintas, fatally shot the Russian Ambassador to Ankara, Andrei Karlov in broad daylight.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick to condemn the assassination, and said that the killing is aimed at straining ties between Russia and Turkey. He also added that the murder is intended at derailing Moscow’s effort to effect a solution for the four year long Syrian civil war.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyep Erdogan too condemned the attack, taking to Twitter to state that the envoy’s assassination is a clear provocation to Turkish-Russian relations.
Both countries chose a measured approach while denouncing the ghastly killing, opting to not flare up the already fragile situation in the Middle-east. Putin and his Turkish counterpart Erdogan also agreed to co-operate in the investigations in Ankara.
The murder comes at the time when Russia-backed Assad troops are closing in on a victory at Syria’s Aleppo.
The bilateral ties between the two major powers involved in the Syrian civil war has been oscillating between collaboration to covert belligerence.
For the starters, Moscow has openly been backing Bashar al Assad while Turkey’s Erdogan supports the Syrian opposition. The conflict enters a quagmire when one brings in the Kurds into the picture. The Kurds have been waging a war of independence since decades, which is opposed by Turkey, as parts of the Eurasian country is populated by the Kurds.
On the other hand, Moscow has been supporting the Kurdish cause in order to gain a foothold in the region. According to the Al Monitor, a West Asian monitoring website, Russia had offered Kurds to form a federation, which was rejected by Damascus.
Turkey, on its part, opposes Assad — a Alawite Shia — and “covertly supports the Islamic State and other Sunni-radical groups in the region as a way to keep Shia/Iran forces in check”, wrote Abhijnan Rej in this article for Firstpost. The removal of Assad from power has also been one of the main pre-conditions to settle the conflict in Syria.
The Turkish government is accused of overlooking the threat from the ISIS, while blaming the Kurdish rebels for the attacks on Turkish soil. Some wild accusations also pointed out that Turkey smuggled illegal oil from the Islamic State. However, in a twist in the tale, Turkey openly entered the war against the Islamic State and Kurd rebels in September this year.
Russia, directly entered the war in the September 2015, though it had covertly supported the national government in Damascus since the civil war began in 2011. According to an article in The Economist, there are several motivations behind Russia’s support of Assad.
In what can be reminiscent of the Cold War, US, Moscow’s long-time rival, supports the rebel troops. Syria has been a ally of Moscow, even when most of the Middle-eastern nations later turned towards Washington. Additionally, Russia maintains its only naval base in Tartus, in the Mediterranean region.
Syria’s conflict threatened to bring Ankara and Moscow to the brink of an all-out war in November 2015, when Turkey shot down a Russian military jet for alleged violation of its air space.
However, here also came the first major twist in the diplomatic tale involving both the countries.
While both countries are approaching the conflict in opposite direction, there has been a visible thaw in the bilateral ties. In August 2016, both presidents met for the first time since the downing of the fighter jet.
While speaking to the media after the meeting, the general sense was that the incident was being downplayed. Turkish president Erdogan called it a “well-known incident last year”, while Putin referred to it as “the tragic incident involving the death of our servicemen”.
Analyst believe that the cost of escalating a regional war made both countries to think about a rapprochement.
According to Rej, the threat of a Nato intervention into the bilateral conflict could have had great consequence in the region. Turkey, as a matter of fact, is a Nato ally, right from the days of the Cuban missile crisis. Any attack on Ankara might have brought Brussels — and Washington — into the conflict.
Erdogan on his part, chose to move closer to Putin, as a bargaining chip to pressure his Western allies to include Turkey into the European Union. The European Union in the meanwhile, suspended talks for including the Eurasian country, because of its post-coup purges.
Media reports suggest that Turkey’s ties with Russia is all set to improve after it softened its stance against Assad. This is after Ankara openly stated that the tanks are in Syria “to end rule of cruel Assad”.
On the other hand, Russia is reportedly supporting Turkey to take over border Kurdish towns in order to strengthen its defence against Kurdish rebels.
This ‘give and take’ relationship between the two powers might change the dynamics of the conflict, which has killed more than 430,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Realpolitik is driving once rival countries to come together. With Donald Trump — who might seek a rapprochement with Russia — set to be the inaugurated in January next year, the bloody war may see a major turning points in the future.
@ yamit82:
Don’t mention it. A lot can change though over time. For example, in Israel, who would have predicted that the Arab birth rate would drop and the Jewish even the secular Jewish birthrate would skyrocket as it is doing now. Jews have caught up and if the present trend continues, the Jewish birth rate in Israel will exceed the Arab birth rate in Judea and Samaria in the near future.
And not just the Arab birth rate. In fact,
“…An Israeli fertility rate of nearly 3 births per woman exceeds the industrial nations’ norm by such a wide margin that Israel—assuming that fertility remains unchanged—will have a larger population than Poland by 2085. Poland’s median age, moreover, will be 57, an outcome impossible for the Polish state to manage (because the majority of Poles in that case would be elderly dependents), while Israel’s median age will be only 32. Even more remarkable is that Israel will have more young people than Italy or Spain and as many as Germany by the end of the century if fertility remains unchanged. A century and a half after the Holocaust, that is, the Jewish State will have more military-age men, and will be able to field a larger land army, than Germany…”
https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2013/02/28/israel-demographic-miracle/
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Thanks FY corrections.
https://www.rt.com/news/349499-fitr-moscow-muslims-celebrate/
My numbers should have read future projections based on current data… some say within 20-30 years.
Russia faces demographic disaster
By Steven Eke
BBC News, Moscow
@ yamit82:
I googled the question: what percentage of russians are muslim and got this result:
“So, the number of Russian Muslims is usually calculated by adding members of all ethnic groups in the country, which are traditionally Muslim, like Tatars, Bashkirs and Chechens. Thus, according to the latest data, there are about 16 to 20 million “ethnic Muslims,” that is 12-15 percent of Russia’s population.Jan 26, 2016”
http://rbth.com/politics_and_society/society/2016/01/26/why-some-russian-women-embraced-islam_562247
This is what the Islamist rag Al Jazeera says (If they were going to lie they would inflate the Muslim figures, like Obama about the U.S.):
“With an official population of 12.5 million, Russia’s capital is now home to at least 1.5 million Muslims, according to political analyst Alexei Malashenko. This is by far more than the Muslim population of any other European city where the local population is not predominantly Muslim…Since the early 2000s, millions of labour migrants from ex-Soviet Central Asia have flooded into Russia, mostly seeking low-paid labour jobs. There is also a visible presence of Muslims from sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East.
Yet, whether Russian-born or immigrant, secular or practising, Muslims don’t feel welcome here. This is partly due to the fact that many Russians feel threatened by this influx of Muslims. The attacks carried out by Chechen fighters and female suicide bombers since the early 2000s also still frighten many.
RELATED: Chechnya: War Without Trace
Although there are no separate polls available for Moscow, a 2013 survey by VTsIOM, a state-owned pollster has found that almost one in seven Russians don’t want to have Muslim neighbours, one-fourth do not want to live near a Caucasus native, and 28 percent don’t want Central Asians next door. Some 45 percent of Russians support the nationalist slogan of “Russia for ethnic Russians”, the poll found.
Making inroads
Moscow has only six mosques, and attempts to build new ones are met with protests and rallies.”
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/07/animosity-moscow-muslims-change-city-150720093306298.html
Dictator? I’m sure Putin is popular.
@ Ted Belman:
I disagree with most of Arnold’s fundamental assertions re: both Russia and China. Both countries are very weak and vulnerable! Both have structural weaknesses and are subject to economic restrictions and sanctions and their militaries are overrated by Arnold Harris, Outspeaker.
Putin’s aggressiveness is in direct response to his weakened position domestically and China is an economic basket case now seeing a major flight of capital and their bond market imploding…. They must provide over a million new jobs per month or face their own domestic backlash. Trump is right that they are building up their country at American workers expense. With a 558$$$ Billion trade deficit to China America loses little if bilateral trade is toggles back to America at Chinas expense even if there is a reduction in trade meaning cheap imports some of it just dumping. China needs the American market more than America needs cheap Chinese produced goods…. Tariffs do not necessarily mean trade wars it means countries will adjust if they want to continue to sell to their best consumer market the USA. Competition will keep prices low and allow American manufacturers to be created to compete with more expensive imports. The trade deficit will be reduced and added income from Tariffs will reduce budget deficits.
Russia produces almost nothing of commercial value and exist only or mainly by exporting gas and oil and weapons. They are subject to laws of supply and demand for those resources and cannot be used for any long term planning with any accuracy. Russia also has their own Muslim problem as almost 50% of Russian population is now Muslim and so is the rank and file of their military. They have some well trained and equipped commando units but the rest are next to mediocre. Their overall economy is a basket case and cannot afford any major conflict or expenditures.
A Machiavellian Trump can bring both adversaries down using their structural weakness against them, without the risk of war or conflict with them.
We have no particular interest in what China — whose ambitions have always been local and contiguous — or Russia — same except during the Soviet period — does in their own backyard except for the need to honor commitments to our allies. As a free-lance musician, I can tell you, you honor your commitments even if it costs you money or opportunity, because reputation is everything. But we need to downsize those commitments or we will wind up in a war we have no need for which, in turn, will detract from the war we need to wage. That being said, it would be immoral to throw Taiwan — a real democracy like ourselves — to the wolves. Or parts of Japan for the same reason. I don’t believe Poland, Ukraine or the Baltic States are in any danger of being placed under Russian dictatorship. The break aways are voluntary. Russia is not violating their rights. They are standing up for their rights. Russia is upholding their right to be independent or federate with Russia as they choose. Chechnya is a perennially Islamist time bomb. Syria appears to be a hopeless mess. There are no good guys. Except for the Israeli medical rescue teams.
I have considered running for President myself but for the fact that I would have to sub out for gigs on weekends and holidays. Don’t think that would play so well in Peoria. I’m guessing. So I guess I just have to delegate to President-elect Trump. At least until Jan. 20. Then I will have to delegate to President Trump. Boy will that be a relief. Can go back to my backgammon game.
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/threemanchess_2199.jpg
EMAIL FROM OUTSPEAKER
All the more reason to get rid of NATO. That’s how WWI started. We should form specific alliances for specific purposes and that’s it. Limited in time and scope.