SEP 30, 2021 Experts react: The key takeaways from the Erdoğan-Putin meeting

 SEP 30, 2021

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan travelled to the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi this week for his first in-person meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the start of the pandemic. During closed-door talks that lasted nearly three hours, the two leaders discussed bilateral cooperation, including on trade and defense, as well as regional issues such as Syria—where a fragile ceasefire brokered by their two countries in March 2020 has shown signs of unraveling over recent months.

As these two regional heavyweights navigate their thorny relationship, Atlantic Council experts weigh in on the implications of the meeting:

Mark N. Katz: Putin’s balancing act continues

James F. Jeffrey: Absent US support, Turkey’s position in Syria is under threat

Putin’s balancing act continues

The Putin-Erdoğan meeting in Sochi did not resolve Russian-Turkish differences over Syria, but did seem to prevent them from getting any worse. For Putin, relations with Erdoğan have long amounted to a balancing act between opposing Turkish moves that threaten Russian interests in Syria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Ukraine on the one hand and avoiding inducing Erdoğan to reverse his hostility toward America and Europe (which Putin wants to encourage) on the other.

Instead, this meeting seemed to indicate that Putin now sees the process of deteriorating relations between Ankara and the West as having progressed to such an extent that Moscow no longer needs to make any significant concessions to Turkey in Syria or elsewhere. Indeed, Erdoğan’s determination to purchase more Russian S-400s—and perhaps other Russian weapons systems, despite the likely application of US sanctions as a result—has reduced Putin’s need to accommodate Turkish interests in Syria.

Now, the danger for Putin is that he might become overconfident in his belief that Erdoğan needs him more than he needs Erdoğan. After all, Erdoğan is capable of harming Russian interests despite his estrangement from the West. Two recent factors of Erdoğan doing so were Ankara’s support for the official government in Libya against the Russian-backed forces of General Khalifa Haftar, and its support for Azerbaijan in that country’s war against Armenia. Stoking Erdoğan’s ego by meeting him—when Biden would not at this month’s UN General Assembly—is definitely worthwhile for Putin.

—Mark Katz is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and a professor of government and politics at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.

Absent US support, Turkey’s position in Syria is under threat

The September 29 Sochi meeting between presidents Erdoğan and Putin is the latest in a series of bilateral meetings particularly focused on Syria. The key issue was the northwest Syrian enclave of Idlib, home to more than three million Syrians fleeing President Bashar al-Assad, Syrian opposition forces, the terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and Turkish forces, all sharing the goal of keeping Assad’s forces out. There has been, apart from a breakdown in 2020, a ceasefire in Idlib since mid-2018, the centerpiece of the freezing of the Syrian conflict since then. But Turkish leaders made clear they feared this Sochi meeting would be different, with Russia pushing for either a Turkish and opposition withdrawal from southern Idlib, or a new Russian-supported Assad offensive.

The two sides’ bland post-meeting comments do not document anything so dramatic, but what was new in this meeting is the role of the United States. The Idlib ceasefire resulted from US diplomacy supporting Turkey’s and Israel’s military actions in Syria, and keeping US troops there, to pressure Russia and Assad for a comprehensive compromise settlement of the conflict. But the Biden administration, while supposedly still “reviewing” Syria policy, prioritizes a minimalist approach focused on fighting the Islamic State and humanitarian assistance. Russia appears to have a green light, as seen with the collapse of another ceasefire in Dara’a in the southwest, to pursue its goals no longer restrained by Washington. The next weeks could see dramatic change in Syria—and not for the better.

—James F. Jeffrey is chair of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program. Previously he has served as US Ambassador to Turkey, US special representative for Syria engagement, and special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS

The views expressed in TURKEYSource are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Experts react: The key takeaways from the Erdoğan-Putin meeting - Atlantic Council