Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is working to establish Turkey as one of Ukraine’s most devoted supporters amid a public feud between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Zelensky met with Erdogan in Ankara on Tuesday to open a new Ukrainian embassy and discuss Turkey’s involvement as a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine war. After the meeting, Zelensky was insistent that Turkey have a seat at the negotiating table alongside Ukraine and the European Union.
“Ukraine, Europe in a broad sense, and this includes the European Union, Turkey and the U.K., should be involved in conversations and the development of the necessary security guarantees with America regarding the fate of our part of the world,” Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian president was originally scheduled to fly to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, after meeting with Erdogan in Turkey, but he postponed his Saudi trip to express his disapproval of the U.S. and Russia meeting in Riyadh for preliminary negotiations without Ukraine being present.
For his part, Erdogan said after meeting with Zelensky that Turkey would be an “ideal host for the negotiations that are likely to begin between Russia, Ukraine, and the United States.”
Erdogan pointed to Turkey’s success at negotiating the Black Sea grain deal of 2022-2023, which allowed Ukraine to export much-needed agricultural products through a safe corridor until Russia withdrew from the agreement, as evidence of Turkey’s value as a mediator.
According to Zelensky, Erdogan assured him during their meeting that Turkey supports Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a move Russia has dismissed as unacceptable. Erdogan was much more vague on the topic of security guarantees for Ukraine in his own public comments.
Turkey has several important commercial and historic ties to Ukraine. One of the most important commercial links at the moment comes through Baykar, the world-class Turkish drone maker owned by Erdogan’s son-in-law, Selcuk Bayraktar. The Ukrainians have praised Baykar drones as indispensable to their defense against the Russians.
A strong historical and ethnic link between Turkey and Ukraine comes through the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic people who were part of Ukraine until Russia seized control of Crimea in 2014.
The Crimean Tatars have roots stretching back to ancient Greece and the Scythian kingdom of the 3rd century B.C. The Crimean Tatars formed their own state in the 15th Century, allying themselves with the Ottoman Empire, which became modern Turkey after it was defeated in the First World War. Today, most Crimean Tatars are Sunni Muslims, and most Muslims in Crimea are Tatars.
The Ukrainian government considers the Crimean Tatars to be an indigenous people, while Turkey feels kinship toward them through ethnicity and their historic relationship with the Ottoman Empire. The largest population of Crimean Tatars living outside of Crimea can be found in Turkey. Some of their community leaders were on hand when Zelensky inaugurated the new Ukrainian embassy on Tuesday. The embassy will be headed by Neriman Celal, Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey and a Crimean Tatar.
“I would like to express my appreciation for the courageous steps taken by my dear friend Zelensky regarding the rights of our Crimean Tatar compatriots, who are especially struggling for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and I hope that additional steps will come,” Erdogan said on Tuesday.
The current defense minister of Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, is also a Crimean Tatar. Before he was tapped as defense minister in September 2023, he was a longtime adviser to Crimean Tatar leadership and a delegate to the Qurultay, the Crimean Tatar parliament-in-exile.
The Russians, on the other hand, have been upset with the Crimean Tatars since their Ottoman-aligned “Khanate” managed to burn Moscow down in 1571. The Crimeans were running a protection racket at the time using their formidable mounted raiders, the rapidly expanding kingdom based in Moscow refused to pay up, and things got a little out of hand.
Russia repeatedly invaded Crimea in the 1770s until the Khanate crumbled, at which point the Empress Catherine II annexed all of the Tatar territory and tried to wipe out their culture, kicking off a long history of the Crimean Tatars faring poorly under Russian domination.
International human rights organizations describe the Crimean Tatars as victims of severe cultural and religious repression ever since Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. The Russians have banned Tatar (and Ukrainian) language and culture in their occupied lands, and made a sustained effort to destroy Crimean Tatar culture by forcibly swapping Tatar residents for Russian settlers.
These ethnic, religious, and historic ties help to explain why Erdogan has become an outspoken advocate for Zelensky. Erdogan may also see the row between the U.S. and Ukraine as an opportunity to build bridges to the European Union (EU), which has been furious with President Donald Trump for criticizing Zelensky in harsh terms, and for negotiating directly with Russia without involving the Europeans or Ukrainians.
Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and aspires to join the EU, although the accession process has been fraught with setbacks since it began in 2005. A team-up with Ukraine might be just the thing to break the ice, which grew rather thick when Erdogan took to calling most of Europe’s leaders “Nazis” a few years ago.
“Given U.S. threats to draw down its forces stationed in Europe, Turkey’s contributions will be increasingly vital for the security and stability of the continent,” European Policy Center senior analyst Amanda Paul told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency news service on Friday.
“For the last 73 years, Turkey has been an important and valued member of the Alliance,” Paul said, skating past a few rough patches when the rest of NATO wondered if Turkey was worth the trouble.
“It has been among the top five contributors to NATO missions and operations both in Europe and elsewhere, including Afghanistan and Iraq. Unlike many other NATO member states, Türkiye has also continued to invest in its armed forces. It is the second-largest standing military in NATO after the United States, which is well equipped with modern weaponry,” she said of Turkey.
Paul noted that “many European countries have insufficient military capabilities” because, unlike Turkey, they “failed to invest in their own security for years.” If the Trump administration pulls back from defending Europe, only Turkey has the muscle to make a difference in the short term, which is why Paul argued it was “incredibly short-sighted” for the Europeans to keep Turkey out of mutual defense projects.
“If we’re talking about the European army … it’s quite obvious that Turkey should be on the table. Leaving Turkey behind would be, I think, a mistake. So certainly when it comes to new evolutions in warfare, being drones and so forth, Turkey is far ahead,” agreed Brussels School of Governance professor Koert Debeuf.
“Washington’s drastic policy shifts serve as an incentive for EU countries to cooperate more, as well as for new strategic partners like Turkey and the U.K. to play a bigger role. This applies both to Ukraine, as well as in the context of European procurement and production,” added Samuel Doveri Vesterbye, director of the European Neighborhood Council.
“Turkey has become even more important for NATO since Washington has shown less interest in the European security architecture. Threats are emanating from the Black Sea, from the Mediterranean, and hybridity in ways that would have been unimaginable decades ago,” Vesterbye said.
In an op-ed for Turkey’s Daily Sabah on Friday, businessman and academic Ihsan Aktas argued that Turkey’s moment on the global diplomatic stage has arrived, because Trump is no longer willing to prop up the weak European states, while Erdogan has mastered the art of supporting Ukraine without unduly antagonizing Russia:
When the Ukraine-Russia war began, the opposition in Turkey held significant influence and appeared, in their view, as if have already won the general elections in Turkey. At the start of the war, the opposition leader, then-main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and then-Good Party (IP) Chairperson Meral Akşener made statements asking to align with NATO as soon as possible, to return the S-400s, to abandon the imaginary foreign policy rhetoric and to manage this war in harmony with NATO.
Today, in an exclusive interview with the Turkish news channel A Haber, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan revealed a critical point that, in my opinion, summarizes the entire war in one sentence: “The pro-NATO faction wanted to push us into a war against Russia.”
Turkey adopted a balanced stance in the Ukraine-Russia war, advocating for a fair resolution. Erdoğan outlined a framework emphasizing that even the worst peace is better than the best war.
The “S-400” mentioned by Aktas is a dangerous Russian-made surface-to-air missile system whose purchase by Turkey enraged the rest of NATO, especially since Turkey was part of the F-35 fighter jet program, so it would end up owning both Russia’s deadliest missiles and the plane those missiles were designed to shoot down. Turkey wound up getting kicked out of the F-35 program, and the U.S. has been trying to convince Turkey to get rid of its S-400 missiles ever since.
Turkey’s approach to negotiating an end to the Ukraine war, as described by Aktas, sounds a great deal like Trump’s bid to negotiate a peace deal. Aktas blamed the Europeans for thwarting Turkey’s diplomatic efforts and “leading Ukraine to step away from the negotiations,” while applauding Erdogan today for backing up Zelensky and helping him demand a seat at the negotiating table.
“Zelensky’s decision to come to Turkey demonstrates his desire to make his voice heard on a fair and just platform, conveyed accurately and through the hands of a strong leader,” Aktas concluded.
Deutsche Welle (DW) was less enthusiastic about Erdogan’s diplomatic influence on Friday, suggesting the Turkish leader’s ostentatious embrace of Zelensky was an act of desperation on his part, because he fears getting frozen out of U.S.-Russia talks along with the Europeans.
Looking ahead, regional analysts told DW that Turkey could have an important role to play if the negotiated end of the Ukraine conflict includes European peacekeepers along the redrawn Ukraine-Russia border – because, as others have pointed out, Turkey has considerably more military power available to handle that duty than the desiccated European defense forces.
Erdogan might also look forward to Turkey becoming a big player in the Black Sea, which Russia would need to use for supply and trade to its occupied Ukrainian territories. Turkey recently signed an agreement with Romania and Bulgaria to begin clearing out mines that were laid along the Black Sea coast during the war.
The post Turkey Takes Up Mantle of Top Ukraine Supporter amid Trump-Zelensky Feud appeared first on Breitbart.
