![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/20121208_EUP004_0.jpg\" "\\"20121208_EUP004_0\\"")
<\/p>\n\u201cASSAD is a butcher, Putin a devil, Erdogan a saint,\u201d rasps Mohammed Mustafa, a bony Muslim cleric, who endured 13 years of torture in a Syrian jail. He is among the 20,000-plus Syrian refugees sheltering at a camp near the town of Ceylanpinar on the Turkish-Syrian border. \u201cIf Russia withdraws its support, Assad will fall in minutes,\u201d claims Ibrahim Jabbali, a Free Syrian Army rebel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The exchange took place as Vladimir Putin, Russia\u2019s president, arrived in Istanbul on December 3rd for talks with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister (pictured above). Russia is wary of Syria\u2019s Islamists and their pull over its own restive Muslims. It is bent on blocking America and its friends from gaining further ground in the region. It continues to back Syria\u2019s embattled president, Bashar Assad, with cash and weapons.<\/p>\n
The Russians have repeatedly blocked more sanctions against Syria in the UN Security Council and are firmly against any international intervention. Turkey is at the forefront of a campaign to overthrow Mr Assad. It has opened its doors to thousands of refugees (135,519 at the last count), and granted haven and the free flow of arms to rebels. Turkey has also been lobbying for the establishment of a buffer zone and humanitarian corridors.<\/p>\n
When Syria downed a Turkish fighter jet over the Mediterranean in June some claimed that it had done so with Russian help. Tension increased on October 10th when Turkey intercepted a Syria-bound passenger jet which it said contained Russian-made radar equipment. Russia denied this and claimed that 17 Russians on board had been manhandled by the Turkish authorities. Mr Putin then postponed a planned trip to Turkey.<\/p>\n
Yet in the end Mr Putin did come, and even signed 11 different agreements with the Turks. \u201cThe level of economic and political relations is such that neither Turkey can forgo Russia, nor Russia Turkey\u2026the future of Assad is nothing,\u201d argued Mehmet Ali Birand, a veteran commentator.<\/p>\n
That is an exaggeration, but Russia has become Turkey\u2019s top trading partner. This is mainly in Russia\u2019s favour: the bulk of the transactions are made up of Russian natural-gas sales to Turkey. Next year Russia will start building Turkey\u2019s first nuclear- power plant near the Mediterranean port of Mersin. Turkey has also agreed to let Russia build a second pipeline via the Black Sea to Europe. Russia is the biggest market for Turkish contractors; Turkey is the top destination for Russian tourists. The two countries boast that two-way trade will triple to some $100 billion in the coming years.<\/p>\n
On the political front decades of cold- war hostility have given way to a cool pragmatism. Turkey remained pointedly neutral during Russia\u2019s 2008 war against Georgia and has worked hard with the Russians to resolve conflicts in the Balkans.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Russia seems to have overcome its twitchiness over the deployment of NATO-manned defensive missiles along Turkey\u2019s border with Syria. It says it \u201cunderstood\u201d Turkey\u2019s security concerns. (Reports that Mr Assad has been shuttling around his chemical weapons have set off alarm bells in Ankara.) And Mr Putin\u2019s assertion in Istanbul that Turkey and Russia \u201cshare the same goals in Syria\u201d but \u201cdiffer on how to get there\u201d is being touted by Turkey as an encouraging sign that the Russians are slowly coming around.<\/p>\n
Turkey\u2019s secular opposition CHP party disagrees. \u201cTurkey did not convince Russia nor the other way round,\u201d insists Faruk Logoglu, a CHP deputy and former ambassador to Washington. Russia wants \u201ca phased transition\u201d, which calls for dialogue between the opposition and Mr Assad. Turkey and the opposition rule out any scenario that would allow Mr Assad to remain in place. In truth Russia has not got the clout to get Mr Assad to leave; nor has Turkey to rein in the rebels. The result, concludes Mr Logoglu, is that \u201cthe Syrian people continue to die\u201d.<\/p>\n
It is not just the Russians who dislike Turkey\u2019s Syrian policy. Even Mr Erdogan\u2019s pious base is airing doubts. In Ceylanpinar Ismail Arslan, the mayor, complains that clashes between the rebels and Mr Assad\u2019s soldiers have turned his town \u201cinto a hell.\u201d Like many he believes that had Turkey not sided with the rebels, the war would have been kept away. Tell that to the thousands of Syrians who continue to flock to Turkey. Jamila, a recent arrival, points to her baby. \u201cIf it were not for Turkey,\u201d she murmurs, \u201cwe would all be dead\u201d.<\/p>\n
via Russia and Turkey: Cool pragmatism | The Economist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cASSAD is a butcher, Putin a devil, Erdogan a saint,\u201d rasps Mohammed Mustafa, a bony Muslim cleric, who endured 13 years of torture in a Syrian jail. He is among the 20,000-plus Syrian refugees sheltering at a camp near the town of Ceylanpinar on the Turkish-Syrian border. \u201cIf Russia withdraws its support, Assad will fall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":60697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[4836],"class_list":["post-60695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","tag-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}