Turkey Wants to Normalize Relations With Russia - For Free?

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June 8, 2016 (Ulson Gunnar – NEO) – Every schoolchild knows that in order to makeup one must first offer a sincere apology. They must also be perceived as sincerely regretting whatever offense it was they committed, and show interest in not repeating such an offense or compounding it with similarly antisocial behavior. If such a notion is easily understood by a schoolchild, how come the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears not to know this?

To answer this question, one must read the narrative provided by the Washington-London establishment. Articles like the BBC’s “Can Russia and Turkey heal rift?” provides useful insight.

The article claims:

[Turkish President Erdogan] also said he wanted to improve ties with Russia but that he did not understand what kind of “first step” Moscow was expecting. 

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was clear about that: Moscow expects a formal and public apology from Turkey and also compensation for the jet incident. 

Not something that Ankara seems likely to do.  

To explain why something so simple is not something Ankara is likely to do, the BBC would elaborate by explaining that there is no “international” pressure on Ankara to do so. For long-time readers of news services like the BBC, they will realize that the term “international” actually refers to the US, UK and EU exclusively.

There is no pressure on Turkey from Washington, London and Brussels specifically because the downing of Russia’s warplane over Syria was part of a wider proxy war these centers of power have been waging in Syria against both Damascus and ultimately against Moscow.

The BBC also noted that:

As Russia maintained a de facto no-fly zone in northern Syria by the Turkish border, Turkey lost its ability to give air support to Syrian rebels or protect its borders from Islamic State (IS) militants’ shelling. 

However, this is a transparent falsehood. IS has long been suspected of using Turkish territory as a safe haven and springboard into Syria. More recently, this has become painfully obvious and a point of humiliating contention for Ankara. Ankara is clearly being left holding the most toxic aspects of Washington’s proxy war against Syria, including complicity in propping up IS.

IS “shelling” into Turkey resembles less of a genuine threat to Turkish security, and more of an updated version of a conspiracy revealed by the International Business Tribune (IBT) in which Ankara planned to attack its own territory from Syria to help justify cross border military incursions into Syria by Turkish forces.

IBT would report in its 2014 article, “Turkey YouTube Ban: Full Transcript of Leaked Syria ‘War’ Conversation Between Erdogan Officials,” that:

The leaked call details Erdogan’s thoughts that an attack on Syria “must be seen as an opportunity for us [Turkey]“. 

In the conversation, intelligence chief Fidan says that he will send four men from Syria to attack Turkey to “make up a cause of war”.

The reason Russia is conducting airstrikes along the Syrian-Turkish border is precisely to disrupt and destroy terrorist organizations operating along it. Most importantly, airstrikes along the border have aimed specifically at disrupting the flow of supplies, fighters and weapons from Turkey into Syria. Considering that fact, it is more likely Turkey and its partners in America and Europe are not upset because they are unable to support efforts to stop IS, but are being prevented from they themselves continuing to prop up IS.

All the Benefits of Reconciliation, Without Actually Reconciling? 

Turkey does indeed likely want to repair relations with Russia, with the latest diplomatic row costing Turkey economically, politically and the BBC even alludes to military consequences as well. However, it is clear that Turkey neither seeks actual reconciliation with Russia, nor intends on reforming its current role in the proxy war being waged on Moscow’s allies in Damascus that has caused this widening chasm in bilateral relations.

In other words, Turkey wants the penalties of its actions negated, while continuing its destructive behavior toward both Syria and Russia. Nothing could be a more irrational and unreasonable foreign policy or more indicative of the immature and irresponsible policymakers currently residing in Ankara.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.