Drowning man catching a straw: An explanation of Turkey’s history of rapprochements with Russia

Ottoman rapprochement to the Russian threat

During the nineteenth century, Russia became the Ottoman Empire’s most important enemy. An unsignificant Slavic principality until the sixteenth century, the Russian Empire became the most formidable power north of the Black Sea region. By the early nineteenth century, the Russian Empire seriously threatened strategic Ottoman territories in the Balkans and in the Black Sea region. Generally, the Ottoman Empire aimed to manage the Russian threat of expansion either on the battlefield or through luring other European powers to ally with them against Russia. However, this was not always the case. In the 1830s, with no other options, the Ottoman Empire initiated a rapprochement with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity.

Relations between the two started in the late fifteenth century when a Russian diplomatic mission was opened in Istanbul and a Muscovite envoy visited the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul to demand the right to engage in trade in Ottoman territories. ³ At this point, the Ottoman Empire was the hegemon in the Black Sea region, and the Muscovite Principality was only an emerging power in northern Asia. Thus there was not enough reason for the Ottoman Empire to prioritize the emerging Russian threat. However, from the early eighteenth century, under able rulers, Russia began to conduct significant administrative reforms, including the modernization of its military. Following the military reforms of Peter I (r. 1696–1725), the Ottoman Empire’s subsequent stagnation encouraged Catherine II (r. 1762–1796) to consider extending Russia’s influence in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean regions. ⁴ With its victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, Russia dominated the Black Sea and increased its influence in the Balkans. After the war, Russia gained the protection of the Christian nations in the Balkans and ensured the Crimean Khanate’s independence before annexing it in 1783. Russia expanded its influence in the Balkans by utilizing secessionist movements among the non-Muslim Balkan subjects of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century. Such expansion made Russia a formidable threat where the Ottoman Empire was once unconquerable. The Russian expansion beyond the Turkish straits into the Mediterranean created a significant security threat, not only for the Ottoman Empire, but also for the European great powers.

In the early 1830s, a strange set of events led to an alliance agreement between Russia and Turkey. At that time, the rebellious Ottoman governor of Egypt, Muhammed Ali Pasha, aimed to secede from the Ottoman Empire. Unable to deal with Pasha’s armies, the Ottoman Empire asked Britain and France for help. However, Britain ignored the Ottomans’ request for support, and France sided with Pasha. ⁵ Another reason for the worsening relations between the Ottoman Empire and the European great powers was the British and French support of the Greek nationalist rebels in the Ottoman Empire. Deprived of Western support the Sultan desperately turned to Russia, which sent its navy to Istanbul. In 1833, the Ottoman and Russian Empires signed the Hünkar İskelesi Agreement. The treaty included a secret provision in which the Ottoman Empire guaranteed to close its straits to European warships in the event of war. ⁶

Based on the security dynamics of the period, gaining the support of the West and particularly Britain and France against the imminent Russian threat made strategic sense for the Ottoman Empire. By the early nineteenth century, successive wars with the Russian Empire had caused significant territorial losses and treasury costs in the Black Sea and Caucasus. Such a partnership would have benefited the European powers too. Crucial for Russian access to the Mediterranean, the Ottoman straits were also the shortest route to Britain’s southern and eastern Asian colonies. For its part, France could have protected its influence in the Mediterranean from the Russian expansion. Thus, France and Britain may have preferred to have a relatively weaker Ottoman Empire to control this route rather than a formidable rival like Russia. However, Britain and France had not expected the growing imminent Russian threat nor the possibility of an Ottoman rapprochement with Russia.

The European great powers acted after the Hünkar İskelesi Agreement. At that point, Lord Palmerston, the British foreign secretary, took the Hünkar İskelesi Agreement seriously and adopted a strategy to protect the Ottoman Empire’s territorial integrity against Russia. That way, Britain could keep the peace in the Levant and prevent the encroachment of Russia in the Mediterranean. ⁷ In 1840, Britain and France mediated an agreement between the Ottoman Empire and Muhammed Ali Pasha. Following the expiration of the Hünkar İskelesi Agreement in 1841, the London Straits Convention met at Britain’s request. The convention closed the Turkish straits to all warships. The Ottoman, British, and Russian Empires were among the signatories. However, the Ottoman Empire was by then in decline and expansion towards the south remained an important strategic objective for Russia. Therefore, Russia had reasons to test the newly emerged partnership between the Ottoman Empire and the European powers. Those tensions eventually led to the Crimean War (1853–1856), when the combined forces of the Ottoman Empire, Britain, and France defeated the Russian Empire. As a result of the Crimean War, the Ottoman Empire joined the Concert of Europe, and its territorial integrity came under the guarantee of the European great powers.

Over the following decades, the Ottoman Empire continued to lose swaths of its territories in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Black Sea region to the Russian Empire. By supporting the nationalist movements within the subject nations of the Ottoman Empires and also through direct conflicts, the Russian Empire was directly responsible for the rapid shrinking of the Ottoman territories. Moreover, heavy war indemnities paid to the Russian Empire had a deleterious impact on the Ottoman budget and its modernization efforts, while Europe’s multipolar security environment and its wide support for the nationalist movements in the Balkans meant that the Ottoman Empire was limited in its attempts to find support. During World War I, Russia’s continuing aspirations for southern expansion encouraged the Ottoman Empire to ally with Germany. It is notable that the Ottoman Empire also aimed to ally with Russia while fully cognizant of Russia’s imminent threat to Ottoman territorial integrity. ⁸

Turkey’s short-lived rapprochement to the Soviet Union before the Cold War

The second distinct instance in which Turkey, in the absence of significant Western support, cooperated with Russia was in the 1920s. The Turks and the Russians, who had fought as enemies in World War I, came closer to each other as newly emerged secular post-imperial states. The Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 brought the end of the Russian monarchy, a process that began with the abdication of Nicholas II in March 1917. Until the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, the Bolshevik government’s most crucial issue was restoring order in the lands it had inherited from the Russian Empire. Meanwhile, following its defeat in World War I, the Turkish army was reduced in size, and the French, Italian, British and Greek occupied parts of what remained from the Ottoman Empire. In response to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the invasion of the foreign powers, national resistance units began to oppose the occupying Western forces across Asia Minor. These units were later united under the command of Mustafa Kemal, who founded modern independent Turkey.

Following World War I, Turkey and the Soviet Union were established as post-imperial nations, with both inheriting reduced territories and the imperial legacies of the Ottoman and the Russian Empires. Having fought against Western imperialism, they remained isolated from Western international society. Both states took a clear stance against British imperialism, albeit for different reasons. Their territorial disputes with the Western powers persisted for over a decade after World War I. Only after years of resistance from the leading Western powers were the two countries included in the League of Nations, in the 1930s. Such isolation from the West paved the way for a period of cooperation between Turkey and the Soviet Union, beginning with the Treaty of Brotherhood (or Treaty of Moscow) which was established in 1921, even before the formal foundation of both states. Under this agreement, the two administrations would resolve border disputes and the Soviet Union promised military and financial aid to Mustafa Kemal’s army. The agreement was not a true alliance, since Turkey refused to adopt communism and had taken an adamant stance against becoming a Soviet satellite or any other form of imperialism. ⁹ However, this did not prevent the two countries from establishing relations as good neighbours after stabilizing their internal situations. In 1925, the two countries signed the Soviet-Turkish Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality. Each promised not to enter into alliances against the other. Trade relations also developed, as the Soviet Union aimed to influence Turkey politically through trade and Turkish officials learned about the Soviet economic model for rapid development. In 1932, the Soviet Union provided Turkey with a loan of 8 million dollars for twenty years to purchase military equipment and build textile mills in the Turkish cities Nazilli and Kayseri. ¹⁰ As a result, Turkey became the first foreign state to voluntarily adopt a Soviet-advised development plan. ¹¹

This short period of cooperation ended due to the establishment of regional security ties between Turkey and the West. From the mid-1930s on, Turkey’s desire to be part of the Western international order gained importance in its foreign policy. Moreover, in response to the Italian aggression in the Mediterranean, Turkey aimed to maintain its territorial integrity through building alliances and amending the status of disputed territories in its own favour, a strategy that drew an adverse reaction from the Soviet Union. For example, during the 1936 Montreux Convention regarding the Regime of the Straits, when Turkey regained control of its straits, Turkey’s diplomatic maneuvering between Britain and the Soviets frustrated Moscow. ¹² To maintain the solidarity of its neighbors within the framework of the emerging German and especially Italian revisionism, Turkey also led the establishment of two regional security orders: the 1937 Saadabad Pact (between Turkey, Iran, and Iraq) and later, the 1953 Balkan Pact (between Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Romania). These actions further antagonized Moscow, which considered the formation of these pacts as moves to contain Soviet influence. ¹³ These bitter relations continued during World War II. Before the war, in 1939, Turkey signed a defence treaty with Britain and then the Treaty of Mutual Assistance between Great Britain, France, and Turkey, while the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression with Nazi Germany. Following the beginning of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, tensions between Turkey and the Soviet Union increased due to revelations of Nazi plans to attack Soviet military targets from Turkish soil. ¹⁴ Finally, Turkey’s wartime neutrality further antagonized the Soviet Union, as Turkey preserved diplomatic relations with the Nazi Germany until 1943 and did not declare war against Nazi Germany until 1945. Meanwhile, after recapturing invaded territories, the Soviet leadership accused the Muslim populations across the Black Sea of treason and, in 1944, ordered their deportation en masse to Siberia and Central Asia. Even though this act did not directly impact bilateral relations, it demonstrated Soviet antagonism and suspicion toward Turkic peoples. It also influenced the balance of power in the Black Sea region, effectively “russifying” the north of the Black Sea.

A window of opportunity for cooperation during the Cold War

The third instance of rapprochement in Turkey-Russia relations occurred during the Cold War, particularly during the détente between the late 1960s and late 1970s following the height of Cold War tensions. A significant turning point in bilateral relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union occurred in 1945 when the Soviet foreign minister conveyed to the Turkish Ambassador Joseph Stalin’s demand to have Soviet bases on the straits and to redraw their shared border. This demand rejuvenated the Russian expansionist threat. Bewildered by the Soviet demands, the Turkish elite turned to the West, just as their grandfathers had done in the mid-nineteenth century. After diplomatic initiatives from Turkey, the US Congress approved a plan to provide financial and military support to Turkey and Greece to prevent Russian control over the Near East. ¹⁵ According to this strategy, Turkey was supposed to slow a potential Soviet offensive toward the Mediterranean, ¹⁶ a region that was crucial for US foreign policy as a conduit for Middle Eastern oil. ¹⁷ Turkey’s position as a bridge between the East and West provided a strategic advantage similar to the nineteenth century when the Ottoman Empire used its strategic advantage in the eyes of the British. The US strategy, known as the Truman Doctrine, propelled a significant breakthrough in Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy. In 1952, Turkey joined NATO after sending troops to the Korean War. Turkey’s NATO membership led to increased US military presence on Turkish soil, which had begun during World War II. ¹⁸

With the decreased Soviet threat following the death of Stalin as well as the continued discord between the US and Turkey, there appeared a change in Turkey-Russia relations. After the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union made an overture, sending a note to Turkey demanding good neighbourly relations and stating that it harboured no territorial claims. ¹⁹ However, Turkey disregarded this notice and participated in two anti-Soviet regional pacts: the aforementioned Balkan Pact in 1953 and the Baghdad Pact (with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and the UK) in 1955. Memories of blatant Soviet requests for Turkish territory were still fresh, and Turkey was enjoying its position in the Western alliance. As in other periods, the game-changer was subsiding Western support for Turkey. The Cold War tensions further diminished in a process that began with the resolution of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and continued with the signing of arms control treaties between the US and the Soviet Union. With these developments came the détente period, which significantly impacted Turkey’s value in the eyes of the West. Finally, Turkey’s relations with the West reached their nadir after Turkey intervened in Cyprus in 1974 and then faced a US embargo.

As a result of the discord with the West, Turkey once again sought improvements in its relations with the Soviet Union. During these years, Soviet developmental assistance formed the basis of the rapprochement between the two. With the help of the Soviet Union, Turkey could build important factories, including the Iskenderun Iron and Steel Plant, Seydişehir Aluminum Factory, Aliağa Petroleum Refinery, Bandirma Acid Sulfur Plant, and Artvin Sheet Factory. With these investments, Turkey became the country that received the most Soviet developmental assistance in the 1970s. ²⁰ These improved bilateral relations also brought about a clear desecuritization of the Soviet threat, culminating with the 1978 Principles of Good-Neighborly Relations, in which Turkey’s social democrat prime minister Bülent Ecevit declared that Turkey no longer saw the Soviet Union as a threat. ²¹ This was a significant development considering Turkish anxieties around the Soviets’ territorial demands in the 1940s.

These steps paved the way for an additional partnership between Turkey and the Soviet Union towards the end of the Cold War, as in the eyes of the West Turkey’s strategic importance remained weak. With the globalization of the world economy in the 1980s and Gorbachev’s rise to power in the Soviet Union, increased trade brought about a structural change to the world’s political system and strengthened bilateral relations and trade between Turkey and the Soviet Union. In the 1980s Turkey’s exports to the USSR increased by 260 percent, and USSR’s exports to Turkey increased by 506 percent. ²² The increased trade relations led to bilateral cooperation, which contributed to regional peace and stability. Throughout the 1980s, the two governments signed treaties outlining their shared border, their cultural exchange policy, and the Black Sea flight information zone. ²³

Turkey’s accommodationist policy towards Russia within the framework of Russia’s revisionism in the Middle East and in the Black Sea

The end of the Cold War presented Turkey and Russia with an unprecedented opportunity (similar to the one in the 1920s) to develop strategic, economic, and social relations. While initially Russia appeared willing to adapt to the realities of the US–led, Western–dominated global international order, since the mid-1990s its policy has gradually changed. From the early 2010s, this revisionism began to significantly threaten Turkey’s regional interests. Having failed to gain the help of the West to alleviate the Russian threat, Turkey would later adapt to what it feels to be the new strategic reality in its surrounding regions. In a fashion reminiscent of the Hünkar İskelesi Agreement, Turkey sought to accommodate Russia.

The disappearance of the Cold War–era securitization dynamics paved the way for regional competition between Turkey and Russia and enabled the two countries to increase their bilateral trade volume. Until 1998, when both countries went into economic recession, bilateral trade increased several-fold, reaching 8 to 10 billion dollars annually. ²⁴ Turkey and Russia also signed the 1992 Treaty on the Principles of Relations between the Republic of Turkey and the Russian Federation, restoring good neighbourly relations. The new Russia initially adopted a cooperationist strategy to protect its great power status within a US–led world order. ²⁵ Russia aspired to be a member of key Western institutions, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and even NATO. Though it could have decreased Turkey’s importance in the NATO alliance, a cooperationist strategy could have also favourably influenced Turkey-Russia relations. However, the expansion of NATO and unilateral US intervention in the Bosnian conflict (1992–1995) caused a change in Russia’s foreign policy strategy, with Russia prioritizing strengthening relations with the post-Soviet states and fostering multipolarity. These two aims appeared in Russia’s official national security concept as early as 1997 ²⁶ and affected Turkey-Russia relations as well. The clash of interest between Turkey and Russia in Turkey’s surrounding region highlighted the growing Russian threat. During the 1990s, the two countries took opposing positions in Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Kosovo crises.

Under Erdoğan and Putin, Turkey and Russia compartmentalized their bilateral relations. While agreeing to disagree on a number of regional issues, they aimed to develop mutually beneficial trade partnerships. In this period, the growing number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey’s southern coasts contributed to its economy, and the Blue Stream agreement guaranteed a steady supply of Russian natural gas to Turkey. However, Turkey continuously ran a trade deficit with Russia. Russia’s relations with the West also began to decline due to NATO’s expansion, the US support to the anti-government protests in the post-Soviet space, and Putin’s assertive foreign policy. Meanwhile, Turkey’s relations with Russia deteriorated because of their opposing positions in the Arab Uprisings and in particular, the Syrian Civil War. The US retrenchment and pivot to Asia that began under Barack Obama but continued under subsequent administrations led to Russia and Iran supplanting the US influence in the Middle East. ²⁷ Without adequate Western support, Turkey had to face the expanding Russian influence in its surrounding region. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, increasing its influence in the Black Sea region. A turning point in Turkey’s relations with Russia occurred in November 2015 when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet hovering around the Turkey-Syria border. Turkey’s pleas for assistance from its NATO allies fell on deaf ears, while Russia’s harsh sanctions significantly damaged Turkey’s economy. Having failed to find adequate support from the West against the Russia-Iran-Syria coalition, Turkey again initiated a rapprochement and a strategy of cooperation. Erdoğan sent a letter of regret to Putin in April 2016 and requested a reset in bilateral relations. Putin’s positive consideration of the letter initiated a new era in Turkey-Russia relations.

The resolution of the 2015 fighter jet crisis and the synergy between the two leaders enabled Turkey and Russia to repair trade relations while intensifying their bilateral partnership. In July 2016, Turkey averted a bloody coup attempt masterminded by members of the Gülen Movement. After the coup attempt, Erdoğan made his first diplomatic visit to meet with Putin in Moscow, where the two leaders pledged to completely recover bilateral relations from the impact of the jet crisis. The bilateral trade volume also grew. ²⁸ The Astana Process, part of the Syrian peace process in which Turkey, Russia, and Iran participated, became a main venue for Syria’s restructuring. Also, their ties in the defence sector significantly deepened with Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 missile defence system from Russia, despite strong US opposition. Although the two nations were still competing for Caspian energy sources and increased influence in the Black Sea and the Middle East, Turkey and Russia sustained intensive diplomatic communication.

At this juncture, a series of regional and global developments amplified this process. Aside from Turkey’s disappointment with the West, the diminishing Western influence in the Black Sea and Middle East along with the growing Russian influence paved the way for further cooperation. Turkey also could not afford to ignore the mutual benefits of having economic ties with Russia. Due to sanctions on Russia, Turkey was suddenly deprived of millions of Russian tourists. Russia was also one of the major destinations for Turkey’s fruits and vegetables as well as its most important energy supplier. With a rapprochement after the coup attempt, Turkey could maintain these ties. Lastly, being a NATO member with strong ties to Russia provided Turkey with a unique bargaining position.

Turkey’s changed position towards Russia manifested itself in its stance towards Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. From late 2021, Russia began to threaten the status quo in Ukraine, moving troops to the border with Ukraine and making requests to change the regional order in Eastern Europe. After months of diplomacy, on the morning of February 24, 2022, Russian troops entered Ukraine and began hitting military targets from many fronts. The Western powers, particularly the US, Britain, and Canada, provided significant help to the Ukrainian soldiers who demonstrated unexpected resistance to the would-be occupiers. ²⁹ Turkey emerged as a key actor in the crisis in the region due to its commercial and political relations with Russia and Ukraine and its status as a NATO member. Tensions in the region seriously affected Turkey’s economy, its regional security, and its relations with the West. By following active diplomacy, Turkey called the international community to fulfill its duty against Russia’s aggression, while using its special relations with the parties to try to calm the crisis that has turned into a conflict. Turkey’s initiatives led to its hosting diplomatic talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations. While Turkey claimed to act as a mediator or a peace facilitator, many commentators and scholars considered Turkey’s attitude to be pro-Russian, and some even called for Turkey’s expulsion from NATO. ³⁰ However, as this article demonstrates, what Turkey did was another balancing act against the formidable Russian threat. As in the 1830s, the rapprochement between Russia and Turkey was because of Turkey’s failure to balance the Russian threat with Western support. In Russia Turkey found a strong partner willing to support its territorial integrity. On each of these occasions, Turkey, situated in the middle of the Black Sea, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Europe, utilized its geopolitical position to gain favour from larger powers.

Conclusion

This article addresses why Turkey continues to accommodate Russia despite Russia’s expansionist threats to Turkey. I argue that Turkey’s policy towards Russia is a “bandwagoning” behaviour aiming at protecting its security interests in its surrounding regions. The most recent example of this emerged in the mid-2010s due to discord between Turkey and the West. As Turkey and the West clashed both over Syria and the increasing Russian influence in Syria, cooperation with Russia became a viable option for Turkish policymakers.

This article draws attention to other historical instances in which Turkey failed to ameliorate Russian threat and opted for bandwagoning. With this, I aim to show that Turkey’s policy decisions are less about its leader or his ideology and more about regional and systemic structural factors. This article shows that under similar trilateral relations with the West and Russia, Turkey made the same choice several times. Since the early nineteenth century, with its expansionist strategy in the Balkans and the Black Sea region, Russia has been a consistent and imminent threat. Throughout much of the nineteenth century and the Cold War, Turkey preferred to deal with this threat through making alliances with the West, which in turn preferred that Turkey act as a buffer to curtail Russia’s expansion. However, Russia was not always an imminent threat and nor did the West consistently side with Turkey. On such occasions, there arose an opportunity for cooperation between Turkey and Russia. During these periods, depending on the degree of Russian threat, Turkey and Russia took important steps to develop trade relations and establish strategic cooperation. This examination of the periods contributes to the understanding of the underlying dynamics in Turkey-Russia relations.