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Russian-Turkish Relations in the Wider Black Sea Region: Cooperation and Competition

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Russian-Turkish Relations in the Wider Black Sea Region: Cooperation and Competition Russian-Turkish Relations in the Wider Black Sea Region: Cooperation and Competition Pavel SHLYKOV* Abstract Key Words In the long historical perspective, Russian Russian-Turkish Relations, Middle East, Black and Turkish foreign policies have been Sea Region, Caucasus, Regional Security, deeply affected by the shared neighborhood Energy Cooperation. of the wider Black Sea region and the Caucasus, where both countries possess Introduction multifaceted security, political, economic This paper explores Russia-Turkey and cultural ties. This paper highlights relations with regard to the wider the complex nature of Russia-Turkey Black Sea region, which includes cooperative and competitive relations the littoral states of Russia, Turkey, with a special focus on the wider Black Sea Ukraine, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, region and the Caucasus since the 1990s. Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It argues that while the general features of In this “shared geography,” Russia and cooperation between Ankara and Moscow Turkey represent “the leading powers in the region are well known, competition with significant resources” and deep is equally strong. Given the fragile nature “historical, cultural, and economic ties of the strategic partnership between Russia with parts of this geography,” which and Turkey, this cooperation-competition give them “comparative advantages in nexus demands a more comprehensive and the pursuit of resolving key issues in multi-level approach to the ways in which their neighborhood.”1 Both countries the two countries’ competitive interests in have numerous interests in this the Black Sea region might be turned into neighborhood, ranging from economic a well-grounded cooperation. and energy cooperation to security interaction and cultural interrelations. * Assoc. Prof., Lomonosov Moscow State University, Institute of Asian and African After centuries-long rivalry between Studies, Moscow, Russian Federation. the Russian and Ottoman empires E-mail: [email protected]. and afterwards during the Cold War 93 PERCEPTIONS, Summer 2018, Volume XXIII, Number 2, pp. 93-116. Pavel Shlykov period, Ankara and Moscow became power plant. Both countries are trying closer following the collapse of the to enlarge their industrial and hi-tech Soviet Union in 1991. cooperation, including in the sphere of hydro-electric engineering. Russian and Turkish elites seem to have similar Russian and Turkish foreign views on the way they would like to see policy has been deeply affected the functioning of the world system. by the shared neighborhood Ideas of a polycentric world order, which theoretically should provide of the wider Black Sea region wider opportunities for global and and the Caucasus, where regional interactions among countries which both countries possess with the ambitions to become new multifaceted security, political, centers of this order, resonate well economic and cultural ties. among decision- makers in both countries. Both Russia and Turkey regard the struggle against extremism This new environment opened up the and radicalism as one of their top shared neighborhood as a region of international priorities. interrelation, interdependence and However, by the middle of the 2010s, competition. In the early 2000s, driven the cooperation pattern Moscow by increasing trade volume, especially and Ankara had developed after the in the energy sector and tourism, collapse of the Soviet Union, based on Moscow and Ankara managed to pragmatic economic interests, faced its develop a cooperative relationship. In limits of growth, while their dialogue 2010, then Russian President Dmitry on political issues did not move Medvedev and his Turkish counterpart significantly forward. The conflict Abdullah Gül laid the foundation in Syria, which started in 2011 as an of the High-Level Cooperation internal political struggle and later Council. At that time, Medvedev became an arena of confrontation even characterized Russian-Turkish involving many Middle Eastern relations as “reaching the level of full- powers, including Turkey, as well as 2 scale strategic partnership.” Russia extra-regional powers, including Russia indeed succeeded in becoming a and the U.S., revealed the vulnerability strategic exporter of energy resources of the existing model of cooperation to Turkey. Both countries developed between Russia and Turkey. It also significant infrastructural and energy brought to the forefront the problem projects, such as the Turkish Stream of a trust deficit between the political pipeline and the Akkuyu nuclear elites of the two countries. 94 Russian-Turkish Relations in the Wider Black Sea Region: Cooperation and Competition The tragedy of the Russian Su-24 2015, most observers agreed that aircraft engaged in operations in Russian-Turkish relations had reached Syria and shot down by the Turkish an unprecedented level of cooperation Air Force after crossing the border in recent years.8 between Turkey and Syria in November 2015 initiated a seven-months-long The phenomena of the Russian-Turkish Russia-Turkey “Cold War.” These “Cold War” hindered the economic developments indicated the necessity determinism argument in the studies of revising the previously established of the countries’ bilateral relations paradigm of bilateral relations. This and made observers of these relations necessity became even more obvious look beyond the previous paradigm, against the background of the extremely which stipulated that economic slow normalization of bilateral ties interdependence in a globalized after the personal letter of President world would prevail over political and Erdogan to President Putin sent on security contradictions. The 2015-2016 June 27, 2016, despite the aspirations crisis between Moscow and Ankara in both countries to look for alternative may well serve as an illustration of international partnerships beyond the conflict between pragmatic interest and U.S., the EU and NATO. economic benefits, on the one hand, and aspirations for an appropriate In the recent decade the dynamics international status and value-oriented of Russian-Turkish relations have policy, on the other. become an issue of intense scholarly interest. Some experts debate whether Proceeding from the scholarly debate this relationship could be qualified outlined above, this paper aims at as a “strategic axis”3 or an “Eurasian highlighting the principal avenues of axis.”4 Others argue that Russia and cooperation and competition between Turkey “developed an economic Russia and Turkey with a special focus interdependence with strategic on the wider Black Sea region. While significance,5 highlighting the the general features of cooperation economic dimensions of these relations. between Ankara and Moscow in the Many argue that Moscow and Ankara areas of energy and regional security have managed to transform “century- are well known, this paper argues long geopolitical disputes into a that the competition is equally strong geoeconomic partnership,”6 or that and takes place in the same fields in they “opted for a depoliticized model which cooperation is most intense. of economic cooperation.”7 Before the This paper intends to contribute to Russian Su-24 incident in November an understanding of what drives the 95 Pavel Shlykov current Russian-Turkish relations in “strategic partnership” to the level of the wider Black Sea region and what political and economic confrontation. tendencies can determine their future development. In doing so, it first looks Historical Context and at the historical context and geopolitical significance of the Black Sea region for Geopolitical Significance Russia and Turkey. It then explores of the Black Sea Region for the reasons for the convergence and Russia and Turkey divergence of Russian and Turkish interests in the wider Black Sea region, Since the early years of humankind, including the Caucasus, and shows the the Black Sea region, a historically complexity of Russia-Turkey relations’ and culturally rich area, has been at projection in the region. the crossroads of different civilizations. From a geopolitical point of view, it has witnessed the intersection of European The seven-month-longand Asian great empires’ interests to Russian-Turkish “Cold War” dominate the regions’ maritime routes, demonstrated the vulnerability and their ambitions to control this of the declared strategic strategically important juncture. By partnership between Russia the early 18th century, the Russian and and Turkey. the Ottoman empires had expanded geographically so that they directly collided with each other in this part Given the broader contemporary of the world. Not surprisingly, they regional context, characterized by the engaged in an intermittent struggle for armed conflicts in the Middle East, dominance in the Black Sea region and for control over the straits nowadays which either involve or strongly affect known as the Turkish Straits (the both Russia and Turkey, such analytical Bosporus and the Dardanelles), which perspectives seem particularly relevant. provide direct access from the Black The seven-month-long Russian- Sea to the Aegean and Mediterranean. Turkish “Cold War” demonstrated the vulnerability of the declared strategic The dissolution of both empires in partnership between Russia and Turkey. 1917 and 1922 correspondingly did not It has also demonstrated how fast completely bring an end to Russian and Moscow and Ankara managed to bring Turkish confrontation in the Black Sea. down their relations from the level of Even though the Montreux convention
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