Türkiye supports Ukraine’s candidacy for NATO. This was made explicit, after midnight in Istanbul, by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, sitting next to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodimir Zelinski. “Ukraine deserves to be a member of NATO,” said the Turkish president.
This is a moment of rhetorical support – a country at war cannot accede to the Alliance – which contrasts with the royal veto that Ankara is exercising on Sweden’s entry into the Atlanticist organization, on the eve of the Vilnius summit. A delaying maneuver now practiced alone, since the Hungarian president, Viktor Orbán, expressed a few hours ago, in Vienna, his green light for him to the Scandinavian country.
This Friday, Volodímir Zelenski, has visited Turkey for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion. The President of Ukraine has been received in Istanbul by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after sunset. They had not seen their faces since last year, in Lviv. On the agenda, the Ukrainian grain transit agreement, which expires in nine days without Russia having expressed interest in extending it, for what it considers a hindrance to the export of its fertilizers.
Zelensky, before returning to Ukraine, thanked Turkey for “its commitment to the territorial integrity” of his country. It should be said that Ankara clings to the Crimean Tatar minority -because of its linguistic and religious affinity- to justify its opposition to Russian territorial conquests. The Tatars, as is well known, represent a small percentage of the population of the Crimean peninsula -and which also speaks Russian, rather than Ukrainian- since Stalin punished and dispersed them for their support of the Nazi invaders.
The Ukrainian president also referred to possible agreements with Turkey “for the manufacture of armed drones.” He also made an even briefer allusion to the failed “peace plan” that was drawn up in Istanbul in March of last year, stressing that “Turkey is once again ready to play a leading role.”
Erdogan said, in this sense, that, beyond telephone diplomacy, “next month” he will see himself “face to face with Vladimir Putin”. Not without first referring to the ability of Turkish companies to rebuild Ukraine when the time comes.
Turkey is the fourth and last country that Zelenski steps on in the last three days. This Thursday, the Ukrainian politician and actor had an agitated interview with the president of Bulgaria, Rumen Radev, who was disgraced by his refusal to send weapons for the Ukrainian offensive. He also did it in such a direct and uncomfortable way for his host that he asked the cameras to stop recording and leave the room. Calmer were his meetings with the leaders of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, closely aligned with the dominant line in NATO.
Erdogan, for his part, continues to receive pressure to flatten Sweden’s sudden Atlanticist vocation. Just yesterday, he had a call from the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. This Monday, on the eve of the NATO summit, his secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, will again favor a face to face in extremis between Erdogan and the Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson.
But the Turkish head of state and government again questioned this Friday “Sweden’s contribution to NATO”, while rejecting the pressure: “We do not trust a country where terrorists roam free”, he said, in reference to the political exiles and fugitives in the orbit of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Fethullah Gülen brotherhood, convicted of coup. In Swedish political culture, the tradition of political asylum is as ingrained as the tradition of neutrality was, until last year.
