TÜRKİYE CUMHURİYETİ ANKARA ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ MEDYA VE İLETİŞİM ÇALIŞMALARI ANABİLİM DALI
THE SHIFTS IN THE MEDIA PERCEPTION AND CONSTRUCTION OF RUSSIA IN THE AKP PERIOD: THE PREPONDERANCE OF THE REALPOLITIK
Tezli Yüksek Lisans Tezi
Gökçe Mustafa Sevinç
Ankara, 2020
TÜRKİYE CUMHURİYETİ ANKARA ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ MEDYA VE İLETİŞİM ÇALIŞMALARI ANABİLİM DALI
THE SHIFTS IN THE MEDIA PERCEPTION AND CONSTRUCTION OF RUSSIA IN THE AKP PERIOD: THE PREPONDERANCE OF THE REALPOLITIK
Tezli Yüksek Lisans Tezi
Gökçe Mustafa Sevinç
Doç.Dr. Cenk SARAÇOĞLU
Ankara, 2020
TÜRKİYE CUMHURİYETİ ANKARA ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ MEDYA VE İLETİŞİM ÇALIŞMALARI ANABİLİM DALI
THE SHIFTS IN THE MEDIA PERCEPTION AND CONSTRUCTION OF RUSSIA IN THE AKP PERIOD: THE PREPONDERANCE OF THE REALPOLITIK
Doç. Dr. Cenk SARAÇOĞLU
Jüri Üyeleri İmza
1. Doç.Dr. Cenk Saraçoğlu
2. Prof.Dr. Besime Pınar Özdemir
3. Dr. Emel Uzun Avcı
4.
5.
30.10.2020
Special thanks to my parents Sümeray Koraltan and Ender Sevinç for their unconditional and constant support. I’d like to thank Fatma Yaman for her editing and corrections and my supervisor Cenk Saraçoglu for his visionary suggestions and his patience throughout the process and to all people that helped me to make this work a reality.
Kind regards,
Gökçe Mustafa Sevinç
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
EU: European Union
US: United States of America
FETÖ: Fethullahçı Terör Örgütü/Gulenist Movement
PKK: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê/Kurdistan Workers Party
YPG: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel/ People's Protection Units
ISIS: Islamic State
AA: Anadolu Agency
AKP: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi/ Justice and Development Party
IR: International Relations
USSR: Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics
NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
IHA: İhlas Haber Ajansı/İhlas News Agency
OEC: The Observatory of Economic Complexity
DMG: Doğan Media Group
MMG: Merkez Media Group
SDIF: Saving Deposit Insurance Fund
RP: Refah Partisi/Wellfare Party
FP: Fazilet Partisi/Virtue Party
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CIS: Commonwealth of Independent States
PKDW: Kurdish Parliament in Exile
UN: United Nations
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1. The Objective of the Research ...... 2 1.2. Methodology and Limitations ...... 4 2. MEDIA EFFECTS: HOW MEDIA AFFECTS FOREIGN POLICY & PUBLIC OPINION? ...... 9 2.1. The CNN Effect ...... 10 2.1.1. Aspects of the CNN Effect ...... 10 2.1.2. The Examples: Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda ...... 11 2.1.3. Scholarly Debate ...... 13 2.2. Propaganda Model and Manufacturing Consent...... 14 2.2.1. Five Filters ...... 14 2.2.2. Versions of the Manufacturing Consent: Elite and Executive ...... 15 2.3. AKP Government & Media Dominance ...... 16 2.3.1. Foundation of AKP: Traditionists vs. Reformists ...... 17 2.3.2. Means of Domination ...... 18 2.3.3. Three Examples ...... 19 2.4. AKP Government, CNN Effect & Manufacturing Consent ...... 22 3. HISTORY OF TURKISH-RUSSIAN RELATIONS ...... 25 3.1. LATE OTTOMAN ERA ...... 26 3.1.1. Crimean War (1853-1856) ...... 26 3.1.2. Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) ...... 27 3.2. Turning Tides: First World War and New Structures ...... 28 3.2.1.1. Caucasus Front (1914-1918) ...... 28 3.2.2. A New Dawn for Nations ...... 29 3.2.3. Cold War Era ...... 29 3.2.4. Fall of USSR and Modern Day Russia-Turkey Relations ...... 32 3.2.4.1. South Caucasus Politics ...... 33 3.2.4.2. Rivalry in Central Asia ...... 34 3.2.4.3. Chechen and Kurdish Questions ...... 35
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3.2.4.4. Middle East Politics ...... 37 3.2.4.5. Commercial Relations ...... 38 3.3. Construction of an Eternal Enemy ...... 39 4. REPRESENTATION OF THE CRISIS ON THE PRO-GOVERNMENT MEDIA 41 4.1. Downing of the Russian Plane ...... 41 4.1.1. Reflections of Downing of Russian Plane on Pro-Government Media .... 42 4.1.2. The Aftermath of the Incident ...... 48 4.1.3. Investigative News and Commentaries ...... 57 4.1.4. Overall Framing of Russia until the Normalization Period ...... 66 4.2. Reconciliation Period ...... 68 4.2.1. Internal Affairs, Reconciliation Period and Pro-Government Media ...... 71 4.2.2. Hard News of Reconciliation Period ...... 72 4.2.3. Commentaries and Investigative Journalism Pieces ...... 79 4.2.4. Overall Framing of Reconciliation Period ...... 88 4.3. From Reconciliation to Alliance: Acquirement of S-400 System from Russia 90 4.3.1. Hard News about ‘’Acquiring S-400 Systems’’ from Russia ...... 92 4.3.2. Commentaries and Investigative Journalism Pieces ...... 105 4.3.3. Overall Framing of the ‘’Acquirement’’ Era ...... 112 5. CONCLUSION ...... 114 5.1. For Further Research ...... 121 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 128 ABSTRACT ...... 133 ÖZET ...... 134
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LIST OF TABLES Table 1: A comprehensive look into how Russia and Turkey relations between 1920- 1960 (Ulgul, 2010)...... 31 Table 2: Visualization of the framing towards US/NATO and Russia between 2015- 2019 ...... 117
TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1: US plans to help to Turkey against USSR ...... 32 Figure 2: Initial reports of Güneş and Sabah about the plane downing ...... 47 Figure 3: Report of Akşam regarding the oil of Syria ...... 50 Figure 4: Report of Yeni Şafak about ''Russia's awaited apology''...... 51 Figure 5: Report of Vatan about Erdoğan's statements of ''They should apologise!'' .... 52 Figure 6: Reports of Yeni Şafak, Yeni Akit and Vatan about Erdogan's warning...... 54 Figure 7: S-400's specifications which created by Yeni Şafak ...... 93 Figure 8: Physical versions of the newspapers Sabah, Akşam, Milliyet and Star reporting the agreement of S-400 ...... 95
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1. INTRODUCTION
Throughout history, Russian and Turkish states have always had a recondite relationship. This relationship can be spotted at both political and public levels. Both nations have ‘’changed skin’’ throughout the relationship. Ottoman Empire could not stand the test of time and transformed into Turkey with democracy and a free-market economy, and Russia faced a revolution and abandoned its ‘’Westernisation agenda’’ in the face of heavy losses in World War I, which led to the Russian Revolution and from that, USSR was born. However, these two nations never ceased to hold a certain level of relationship, which can be either ‘’co-operation’’ or ‘’war’’ or both.
Rooted deeply in history, these types of relations can be a topic for contemporary social endeavours. Besides being a topic of history, historical relations can be the topic of social sciences, or it can be the topic of contemporary politicians who want to employ a specific narrative to create a particular perception in the eyes of the people.
These historical relations can sometimes involve the wars fought between two nations, or can sometimes be one of these nations helping or supporting the other one.
As we will explain in the upcoming chapters, throughout history, the political relations of Russia and Turkey have never been stable. Besides that, these two countries are sharing fruitful relations based on pragmatic aspects based on commerce and energy.
This contradiction in the bilateral relations enables governments to instrumentalize these relations depending on the political environment. The period between the ‘’downing of the jet’’ and ‘’acquirement of S-400 air defence system’’ was the prime example of the particular instrumentalization. First, the AKP government formed a discourse around
Russia being the historical enemy. When the dust of the political turmoil settled, the political narrative focused on the bilateral fruitful relations between Russia and Turkey.
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That being said, this change of narrative was also influenced by third parties such as
NATO and the US.
Relations between Turkey and its Western allies were not ideal before the incident happened. Turkey wanted to acquire MIM-104 Patriot air defence system from
Russia for defending its airspace but the US was reluctant to sell it. Nevertheless, when the plane downing incident happened, Turkey sought the help of its Western allies and summoned NATO to assemble. Arguably, NATO acted as a deterrent force in that particular period. Contrasting interests of Turkey, the US, and Russia engendered a political environment that enabled unusual relations based on the interests of the respective states. When Turkey wanted to organize an operation in Northern Syria against
YPG/PYD, the US tried to stop Turkey since the US was supporting these groups: the US was of the opinion that YPG/PYD was fighting against the threat of ISIS. However, in
Turkey’s perspective, these groups were posing a threat to the security of Turkey.
1.1. The Objective of the Research
As the Middle East politics became more convoluted with the raging war in
Syria, the deprivation of Turkey for air defence systems became more imminent. Since the US was reluctant to sell its Patriot system to Turkey, Turkey made an agreement regarding the acquirement of S-400 air defence system from Russia to meet that requirement. Consequently, this agreement was not approved by the US. After a skirmish of statements between the US and Turkey, US eventually excluded Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program under the pretext of possible usage of the S-400 to gather information about the F-35 jets and therefore, S-400 could be used to gain leverage against the F-35 jets which are being produced by the US and its allies.
These political events forced the AKP government to redefine their political course and change their perspective regarding Turkey’s allies and adversaries. With these
2 changes, they used various discourses against different actors. Before the incident of downing the Russian jet and until the reconciliation period with Russia, the AKP government perceived Russia as the enemy while they perceived the West as an ally.
After the reconciliation period and the acquirement of the S-400 system from Russia
Turkey antagonized the West while framing Russia as an ally.
The altered perspective of AKP government at international politics produced outcomes that worth looking into. The reason for that is the status of media outlets in
Turkey, which is quite parallel with the government. In Turkey, the AKP government forged a group of media outlets by employing various methods which we will coin later in the upcoming chapters. These media outlets are supportive of the AKP government regardless of the circumstances. In this study, we will coin these media outlets as ‘’the pro-government’’ media. If the suitable conditions are met in international politics, pro- government media often uses these historical relations to create a specific discourse.
To justify the foreign policy of the states, the media produces various narratives. Historical grievances or good relations of the countries are great instruments to generate these narratives, especially when these countries have shared centuries-long relations. In these types of longstanding relations, one can spot both conflicts and good relations, namely, history gives lots of opportunities to create a certain type of narrative for both politicians and journalists. The key aspect of the usage of history as an instrument is the fact that the trajectory of the historical narrative is ultimately defined by realpolitik interests of the states. The period between the ‘’downing of the Russian jet’’ and
‘’acquirement of S-400 system’’ was one of the prominent examples to understand the correlation between media, public opinion, and foreign policy. This study aims to show the reader that change of narrative in the media is possible when the realpolitik of the political environment requires a justification. Even when this particular justification contradicts with historical myths pro-government media can use different fragments of 3 history to achieve this justification. In this study, we will try to reveal how the narrative of pro-government media regarding Russia changed in the pro-government media outlets as the AKP government changed their perspective to Russia and how the history is instrumentalized to achieve justification of the foreign policy.
1.2. Methodology and Limitations
At this point, it could be convenient to inform the reader about the structure of the study. To reveal the relations between media, foreign policy, and public opinion and to understand how history is instrumentalized to create a narrative by pro-government media, we will discuss the media theories that explain the media effects on politics. Then we will delve into the media sphere of Turkey and how AKP has created a pro- government media ensemble under their administration. After that, we will use our theoretical findings to explain the relationship between media, foreign policy, and public opinion in Turkey.
Based on an overview of the pro-government media coverage of the Russia-
Turkey relations between the years 2015 and 2018, I will pursue the following arguments in this thesis: a) the pro-government media in Turkey instrumentalizes history or historical narrative to frame the actual/current relations between these countries in a particular way; b) what elements of the history is used to construct a narrative related to current affairs is contingent upon the actual real-politic interests and calculations of the government, which control the media. As such, one can infer from this Turkish case is that those media institutions that function as an ideological apparatus of the state and dominant political actors could use the historical events as a tool for building an ideological narrative that would support the international and domestic political objectives of those in power. These media institutions tend to revise and even reconstruct their narrative and thereby change how the ways in which incorporate history into their
4 discourse insofar as this is required by shifting positions of the government in international and domestic political affairs.
Besides the theoretical frame, to understand the narrative of the media, a semi-comprehensive look into the Russo-Turkish relations throughout history is a necessity. These two nations have had various types of relations throughout history. These relations involve thirteen wars between the Ottoman Empire and Tsarist Russia, First
World War, rapprochement period in the Turkish War for Independence, and first years of the Turkish Republic. After these, relations turned sour again when Turkey had sided with NATO and stored the nuclear bombs of the US in that time being. That being said, after the collapse of the USSR, Turkey did compete -and still competes- over various topics such as ethnic minorities and the status of the Turkic states. However our main point is based on an event that happened in modern times, meaning, for the clarity of the study, it would be more convenient to stay in relatively modern times. However, this does not mean that this study will ignore the ‘’older’’ relations of Russia and Turkey, but we tried to involve them only briefly. History is an integral part of that study, but this will not be a historical study. So, I will limit the definitive part of history to the 1848 Crimean
War until the short aftermath of buying S-400 missiles from Russia.
After the inquiry into the history, we will examine the journalism and column examples of pro-government media outlets. This inquiry into the news will involve three periods: (1) ‘’ downing of the jet’’ period, (2) ‘’reconciliation’’ period, and (3) ‘’the acquirement of the S-400’’ period. ‘’Downing of the jet period’’ starts from the related event until the spring of 2016 where the reconciliation became a probability.
‘’Reconciliation period’’ follows where the first period left and ends in late 2017 when the agreement allowed Turkey to acquire the S-400 systems from Russia had been signed.
That period followed by ‘’the acquirement of the S-400 period’’ which goes until the third quarter of 2019. Pro-government media outlets we will incorporate will be the most 5 prolific ones in Turkey such as Yeni Akit, Sabah, Yeni Şafak, Vatan, and Milliyet. The reason why we selected these papers is that these papers are the most circulated pro- government media outlets in Turkey. Alas, even if there are many more pro-government media companies in Turkey, it would be more convenient to include most circulated ones since we will be dealing with ‘’public opinion’’. Besides, including more pro-government media outlets will eventually cause saturation in the study because they are univocally defending the same argument.
The newspapers mentioned above are the closest private media institutions to the AKP government. Therefore if the report is not made by the Anadolu Agency (AA), which is the official state news agency of Turkey. Which means, the outlets mentioned above will be the ones that ’sets the tone’ of the support or criticism when an event happens. One of the problems regarding the ‘setting the tone’ is that they tend to take each other’s reports while referencing the other outlet. For example, Yeni Şafak could take the report which initially made by Vatan and could mention Vatan as a source. If such an occurrence happens in this study, we will incorporate the initial report. However, if the initial source is not available we will incorporate the secondary source while referring the initial source.
In our examination of newspapers, we categorized the reports as two types:
(1) event journalism (hard news) and (2) investigative journalism and commentaries
(columns). Event journalism pieces are mostly about the occurrences and relevant events throughout the ‘’downing of the Jet’’ and ‘’acquirement of the S-400’’ systems and investigative journalism and commentary pieces will be about the opinions of experts and columnists about the recent events throughout the defined period. We tried to filter out the reports that are mentioning the fragments of the history of Turkish-Russian relations.
Then we evaluated these reports with our research question: ‘’How pro-government
6 media justified the foreign policy actions of the AKP government by using the history as an instrument?’’.
There had been many studies that shed light on the effects of media on foreign policy and public opinion. These studies tried to explain how media has a role -or has not- in agenda-setting or foreign policy actions. However, these studies were mostly focused on whether the news have any effect on foreign policy or not, meaning, they were not inquiring the instruments that were used to shape that effect on public opinion or foreign policy. Our study will try to fill that gap by showing the reader how Russian-Turkish history instrumentalized in the period we specified above. Secondly, the eclectic nature of this thesis allows this study to be an excellent source for the individuals who want to enter the world of Russian-Turkish relations and in the field of political communication.
Thirdly, this study can be an excellent source to comprehend how politics and media are intertwined with each other.
Another limitation will be about the reports that are based on the Anadolu
Agency. Some reports on the pro-government media were based on the reports of AA, and these reports sometimes univocally repeated by pro-government media with a different title, but the essence of the report remained the same mostly. Nevertheless, the reports that are based on the coverage of AA can offer valuable information occasionally.
Naturally, AA being the official media outlet of the state makes it the outlet that is the closest to the government/government officials. That means that AA can get information faster from the politicians and government officials than the private media outlets by using its official media outlet status. That paves the way for AA to dominate the content creation regarding the state endeavours.
On the other hand, AA-based reports are univocally repeated in the pro- government media. Most of the outlets only changed the title of the reports that had been
7 created firstly by AA and keeping the body of the report mostly the same, while cutting, adding, or paraphrasing some sentences. Since we cannot cut out all the reports that are based on AA, if such occurrence happens in this study, we will implement only one ‘’pro- government’’ outlet about the related report and also inform the reader about that particular report initially reported by the AA.
However, we will also incorporate some reports and pieces that are not directly tied to the elements mentioned above. The reason for that is the necessity of a multi-dimensional perspective to understand how a specific narrative is constructed. To do that we will deal with some reports that are not only about how Russia has been portrayed with historical perspective but we will also incorporate the commentaries, reports, and investigative journalism pieces about contemporary occurrences in the
Middle East region regarding power politics. Long story short, including reports that are not directly about historical segments, will allow the reader to get a greater grasp of how the government and pro-government media alter the perception of Russia.
Before finishing this brief introduction, we will also gather information from the other social sciences fields such as international relations and also incorporate the term ‘’framing’’ in the context of media to understand the meaning of realpolitik and how media is creating a specific discourse to help the authority to achieve their political goals.
In the next chapter, we will be discussing some media theories that are affiliated with our study.
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2. MEDIA EFFECTS: HOW MEDIA AFFECTS FOREIGN POLICY & PUBLIC
OPINION?
The media are often deemed to influence how people think and feel. Although if you ask somebody, they would probably deny that influence. One of the prominent studies that explain the effects of media is the work of Harold D. Laswell: The response- stimulus model. To explain simply, Laswell believed that media products are working as a stimulus that prompts people to act. For example, according to Laswell, when an individual exposed to fascist propaganda on TV, he/she will be going to become a fascist eventually. Another example of media effects on people can be the ‘’spiral of silence’’ theory of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Briefly, this theory suggests that elites create a hegemonic ideology and they transmit this ideology by media. People with oppositional beliefs have a fear that they could get excluded from society because of their beliefs, thus, they prefer staying silent rather than voicing their opinions. Ultimately, the constant transmission of the dominant ideology constantly increases the fear of voicing an opinion, and eventually, it creates an ever-continuing spiral (Laughey, 2010).
While these theories are excellent to understand the media effects on people, they are lacking in two important aspects. Firstly, these studies are too generic, meaning they can be applied to every occasion. The theory of Laswell can be applied to a wide array of media products such as music, movies, pornography, and alike. Spiral of silence is excellent to understand the correlation between media and internal politics but it does not offer a comprehensive idea about the media and foreign policy correlation. Also, these theories do not explain the relations between media and political elite and to what extent media is affecting the elites. However, these theories formed solid bases for the studies that came after them.
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In the media studies, there are two prominent views regarding the media and foreign policy relations. On one camp, some scholars believe that media are directly affecting foreign policy. On the other camp, some scholars believe that elites, who are designing the foreign policy strategies, are also influencing the media outlets, therefore the reports of the media are influenced by the political elites. Scholars that believe the media are affecting the foreign policy, explain this effect with a phenomenon named ‘’the
CNN effect’’. On the other hand, the scholars that believe politics are effecting the media base their arguments on Herman and Chomsky’s famous ‘’manufacturing consent’’ theory. In the next subchapters, we will discuss these theories with their superiorities and lacking aspects and give examples from these theories in foreign policy.
2.1. The CNN Effect
Public opinion has become an important factor in the information age. Before this period, international policies were being planned behind closed doors, covertly.
However, after the 20th-century, politicians ha learned to use the media to steer information to their advantage (Coban, 2016). Deeply intertwined with the ‘’agenda setting’’ model of Max McCombs and Donald Shaw, the CNN effect is a term for explaining the influence of media on the policymakers when they create their foreign policy. Media achieves that influence by using shocking images of the countries that experience humanitarian crises which eventually leads to politicians say ‘’something has to be done’’ (Gilboa, 2005).
2.1.1. Aspects of the CNN Effect
Livingston (1997) puts out three aspects when he explains the CNN effect;
(1) a policy setting agent, (2) an impediment to the achievement of desired policy goals and (3) and accelerant to policy decision-making. By using the disturbing imagery, media can effectively re-arrange the foreign policy, therefore media can be an agenda-setting
10 agent. Media can undermine the morale of the nation and soldiers by giving place to grisly imagery on the media and can leak the secret plans of the government that organize the military operation with their information-gathering techniques and also can speed up the decision-making process by incorporating shocking imagery which creates a sense of urgency.
2.1.2. The Examples: Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda
Scholars that examines the CNN effect have reached a consensus regarding how this phenomenon operates. What they are arguing about is the question of how effective the media are when policymakers decide foreign policy actions. One of the focal points of the debate is the US-led operation ‘’Restore Hope’’, which was organized to intervene in the civil war in Somalia by the Unified Task Force. Robinson (1999) spotted that some journalists and scholars stated that the media took an active role to force that intervention and accelerated the process of decision making of the Bush administration.
On the contrary Livingston and Eachus (1995) with their study, argued that intervention at Somalia was not engendered by media; the intervention caused by the diplomatic and bureaucratic decisions of the US’ decision-makers, and the media only responded to those decisions.
On the other hand, the role of media in the humanitarian crises is a subject of controversy among scholars. While they accept the role of media outlets about increasing the exposure of the public to these crises, they are not univocally agreeing on the role of media at the military interventions. Bosnian war can be given as an example of the limited effect of media regarding the military intervention on humanitarian crises. Bosnian War started on March 1, 1992, and ended with Dayton Agreement on December 14, 1995.
Several war crimes were committed by all of the sides fought the war such as rape, ethnic cleansing, and also several massacres including the Srebrenica massacre (Waller, 2007).
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While the UN security council applied arms and oil embargo on Yugoslavia, the full- scale intervention of NATO started on July 16, 1992. However, up until 1994, NATO only tried to secure strategic points and wanted to control the damage of the war. When the war got out of control and massacres started to occur, NATO decided to use its air superiority and launched full-scale aerial operations against Bosnian Serbs (Carmichael,
2015).
Another example that scholars point out when they want to explain the limited effects of the media on military intervention is the Rwandan genocide and late intervention of the French-led UN to the unfortunate massacre. At first, western media outlets were apathetic to the conflicts at Rwanda and they perceived those events as
‘’another tribal conflict in Africa’’ (Bredeson, 2011) and media was not quick enough to realize that a genocide is happening in Rwanda (Melvern, 2001). Thompson, in his 2007 book, Media and the Rwanda genocide gave place to an interview with Mark Doyle who was a former world affairs correspondent for BBC and worked in Africa for most of his career. He remembers his coverage of the genocide with these words:
I have to admit that during the first few days, I, like others, got the story
terribly wrong. Down on the ground, up-close – if you could get close enough, safely
enough – it did look at first like chaos. I said so. I used the word chaos…Looking
back through my reports, it appears I didn’t use the word ‘genocide’ until 29 April,
in a report filed from Nairobi that noted that the British aid agency Oxfam had
described the killing in Rwanda as ‘genocide’. But my reports had for some time
been replete with references to the massacres of Tutsi civilians and moderate Hutus
by government-backed militias.
After that, as it became clear to me what was happening, I used the word
genocide more often.
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Even he admits that he acknowledged the genocide late, he still noticed what was happening in Rwanda and reported them as ‘genocide’ in late April. The genocide started April 7, 1994, and the operation of the UN, L'opération Turquoise, began on June
23, 1994. When one considers the media started to acknowledge genocide at the end of
April, there is still quite a gap between media reports and military intervention, especially when one considers that genocide lasted for four months (Melvern, 2004).
2.1.3. Scholarly Debate
One of the important parameters of the influence of media on foreign policy is political uncertainty. Research of Robinson (2001) argued that the influence of media is in parallel with the certainty of the policy of the state; if there is any uncertainty in the foreign policy, media can influence the foreign policy and cause unforeseen consequences. However, media has little to none room to influence foreign policy if the related government has a certain and based foreign policy. Kofi Annan explains the political uncertainty of media relations with these words:
When governments have a clear policy, . . . then television has little
impact. . . . When there is a problem, and the policy has not been thought [through]
. . . they have to do something or face a public relations disaster.
In the scholarly field, there is some uncertainty regarding the CNN effect on foreign policy. Scholars have reached a consensus about, to some extent, media has effects on foreign policy but they have dissidence about media being the driving force in the process of foreign policy actions. Media can indeed induce awareness through the minds of people, including the politicians but scholarly work suggested that the CNN effect is a somewhat controversial phenomenon and the CNN effect being the main driver for the foreign policy is still up for discussion, even today.
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In the next chapter, we will discuss the propaganda model of Chomsky and
Herman, which is considered by most scholars as a polar opposite of the CNN effect.
Rather than being a total opposite of the CNN effect phenomenon, the work of Chomsky and Herman can be seen as a complementary piece to the CNN effect phenomenon to some extent since it is not only limited to the foreign policy and media relations and explains the relations of media with other public and private institutions. However, the difference between Chomsky & Herman’s work and other studies in the media is the fact that they believe media is instrumentalized by the media to convey propaganda. Our next chapter will be dedicated to the work of Chomsky and Herman.
2.2. Propaganda Model and Manufacturing Consent
In their book Manufacturing Consent, Herman and Chomsky developed a model to explain the relations between media and other institutions. They argued that media is an instrument of a state to propagate a specific ideology because of relations of media with other institutions (Herman & Chomsky, 2010). According to Herman and
Chomsky (2010), the complicated nature of social interactions is causing the media outlets to be generally parallel with the ongoing political agenda.
2.2.1. Five Filters
Herman & Chomsky believes that politics/ideology does not directly rule over the media, but politics/ideology giving them a certain trajectory because of their relations with the media. To explain how politics/ideology defines the media products, they put out a model that consists of five aspects (filters). (1) Size, ownership and profit orientation of mass media and their shared interests with other institutions negates the media’s role of being a watchdog of the elite, therefore media becomes an instrument of the elite. (2)
Most types of media including the news media are heavily relying on the advertisement revenue. Media outlets position themselves to appeal to the business people who can give
14 advertisements to that particular media outlets. Therefore media outlets always adjust the level of criticism to a certain level to not interfere with the ‘’buying mood’’ of the audience. (3) Journalists have to be closer to the elite sources to construct striking coverages. Keeping a rapid and study flow of important news is a must in most media outlets. Therefore they had to avoid any dismay with the elite sources. (4) Media outlets had to avoid the ‘flak’ that could come from the other institutions to keep positive and steady relations with the public. (5) Herman and Chomsky put out an ideology of ‘anti- communism’ that provided journalists with a ready-made template with which to
‘understand’ global events. As an ideology ‘anti-communism’ exploits the public fear and hatred and this ideology instrumentalized by media for creating striking reports. Chomsky is well aware that anti-communism is not a valid belief anymore but according to him employment of ‘fear’ as an instrument stayed the same (Mullen, 2009). This fear can be interpreted as fear of evil dictators such as Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein or
Vladimir Putin or can be fear of terrorism. (Herring & Robinson, 2003).
2.2.2. Versions of the Manufacturing Consent: Elite and Executive
Later studies that emphasized the propaganda model of Herman & Chomsky argued that there are two implicit versions of manufacturing consent; the executive version and the elite version. The executive version is focused on the extent of how media conforming the decisions of government officials since this version acknowledges the government officials as the members of the executive. The elite version can be understood as a more generic version of the executive version. The elite version argues that media coverage conforms to the interests of the political elite whether they are the members of the executive or not (Robinson, 2001). Entman (1991) argues that the media created completely different framings for the event of shooting down of Iran Air jet on July 3,
1988, and the shooting down of a Korean Air jet by the USSR on September 1, 1988.
According to him, US media outlets portrayed the USSR as an ‘’evil empire’’ -which 15 goes parallel with the Raegan’s evil empire narrative- that slaughters the innocent people, while they framed the involvement of the US in the shooting down of Iran Air jet as a
‘’technical failure’’. The determinist approach of the executive version of manufacturing consent is challenged by later researches. Bennett (2006) argued that mass media is indexed within the political debate. That means political debates can cause divergencies in the mass media framings. He also emphasized that criticism against the executive can only happen if there is an elite debate in the policy.
Manufacturing consent theory shows that media can be an instrument of the political elite within the democratic systems due to media being a business and having complicated relations with other institutions. Previous studies that asserting media is dominated by politics and ideology, mostly put forth that this dominance happened by the means of using force. Siebert, Siebert, Peterson, Peterson, and Schramm (1956) claim that authoritarian regimes dominate the media by using undemocratic and authoritarian nmethods. Following the same vein, Althusser (1970) believes that ideological state apparatuses like media are extensions of the repressive state apparatuses such as law enforcement forces. The only difference is that the ideological state apparatuses work at the level of ideology. According to Althusser, dominant classes use the ideological state apparatuses to rule over the minds of the dominated class. What makes the propaganda model of Herman & Chomsky unique is the fact that the instrumentalization of media by political elite happens with subtle means that are operating within the limits of liberal thought and democracy.
2.3. AKP Government & Media Dominance
If we include the late era of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey had quite a history of firmly controlling the media outlets. Starting from Abdul Hamid II up until our current era, rulers and governments have always tried to gain control over the media. In the past,
16 rulers like Abdul Hamid II applied extreme censorship that went to the point of banning the word ‘’burun (nose in English)’’ since he had a large nose (Boyar, 2006); now, governments of Turkey are trying to get a hold of the media by making the media outlets that support them powerful by providing them with subversions (Uzun, 2014). That being said, the AKP government is unique in a way that they are trying to achieve absolute control over the media. For that reason, they are using both ‘’subtle’’ approaches and also applying more appreciable methods to achieve that ultimate control.
2.3.1. Foundation of AKP: Traditionists vs. Reformists
Contrary to their current status, the early formation of AKP consisted of politicians who had liberal tendencies with Islamic roots. They were mostly members of the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party/RP) which was closed after an ultimatum given by the military on February 28, 1997 (Akser & Baybars-Hawks, 2012). From the formation of
RP, a new political party called Fazilet Partisi (Virtue Party/FP) was born. Shortly after the foundation of the FP, frictions inside the party started to occur. On one camp, there were reformists (yenilikçiler) and on the other camp, there were traditionalists
(gelenekçiler). Shortly after, FP was shut down with the excuse of FP being the continuation of the RP. After the closing of FP, reformists decided that they should form up a new party and they founded AKP. On August 14, 2001, AKP has officially been founded with the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and after a year, they won the governmental election and became the ruling party of Turkey on the date November 3,
2002 (Erler, 2007). In their first two terms, they took neo-liberal steps by privatizing several state institutions such as Türk Telekom, Petkim, Tekel, and alike. They also took solid steps for making the EU dream of Turkey a reality (Kirdiş, 2015). While media and
AKP government relations have always been tense from the start, journalists were relatively secure from prosecutions initiated by AKP elites when compared to their later terms (Silverman, 2014). 17
2.3.2. Means of Domination
Akser and Baybars-Hawks (2012) spotted five methods applied by AKP to ensure media dominance. First, the AKP government applies political and economic pressure to media conglomerates by using methods that are within the legal limits.
Second, the AKP government using intimidating judicial actions against journalists and other intellectuals who are critical of them for suppressing them. Third, the AKP government tries to control the online information with institutions like the Turkish
Information and Communication Technology Authority, using several methods like blocking websites such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Ekşi Sözlük, and alike. Fourth, AKP utilizes an Orwellian type of surveillance network which consists of phone tapping and espionage activities to defame the oppositional politicians and journalists. Finally, AKP government does not give accreditation to the journalists who work at the media outlets that are critical of them, thus, they do not let journalists critical of them get closer to the government institutions to gather information. They only give accreditation to journalists who are ‘’safe listed’’ by the government.
On the other hand, AKP effectively used this new neo-liberal turn in the policy to their advantage over the course of their terms. AKP government used the privatizations to define the winners and losers in the business. Selling the state industries granted AKP the power to enrich their supporters in the business world (Silverman, 2014).
As one can guess, AKP also took advantage of this ‘’making their supporters powerful’’ approach in the media sphere and created ideal opportunities for their ‘supportive business people’ in the media world and constructed a media empire that supportive of themselves regardless of the circumstances.
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2.3.3. Three Examples
One of the examples would be the acquirement of Merkez Medya Grubu
(Central Media Group/MMG) by the pro-government businessmen. In 2007 Merkez
Medya Grubu, owned by Ciner Group was seized by the government institution Saving
Deposit Insurance Fund (SDIF) (Şeker & Uzun, 2018). In the same year, Çalık Holding, who are known for their pro-government views, acquired MMG from SDIF. With that acquirement, Çalık Holding acquired the outlets such as ATV, Sabah, and Takvim. In
2014, it was sold again to another pro-government conglomerate, to the Zirve Holding and after that, they named the media conglomerate as Turkuvaz (Turquoise). CEO of
Çalık Holding was Berat Albayrak who is the son-in-law of Erdoğan and the Minister of
Economy of Turkey by the time this study has been made. Turkuvaz branch is managed by Serhat Albayrak who is the brother of Berat Albayrak (Yagci & Oyvat, 2020). In 2013 another pro-government firm Kalyon Construction bought these outlets from the Çalık
Holding.
Another similar example to the Turkuvaz example is how Uzan Group lost all of their investments in Turkey including the media. Head of the Uzan Group -Cem
Uzan was one of the most colourful figures both in political and business circles. Uzan family benefited from privatizations of the 1990s and became a big conglomerate by the start of 2000s. Uzan Group-owned various businesses including media outlets such as
Star. Most of the Uzan family was under investigation from the previous governments and they got sued by Motorolla for they did not pay the share of Motorolla in their partnership. Cem Uzan eventually wanted to get into politics and entered two elections in
2002 and two 2007 and got a decent amount of following from the voters. Eventually,
Uzan Group started to lose their lawsuits one by one and most of their companies seized by SDIF, and one of them was their media group, including the television channel Star.
Eventually, Doğan Media Group (Doğan Medya Group/DMG), whose owner was -Aydın
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Doğan- at good terms with Erdoğan at that time, opted to buy Uzan Medya and became the largest media conglomerate in Turkey (Akser & Baybars-Hawks, 2012).
However, in time Doğan Yayın Holding faced the same fate like Uzan Group and Ciner Group as media outlets of DMG became more and more critical of the policies of AKP government over time. Aydın Doğan, chairman of the Doğan Group, was one of the most vocal critics of the RP and Erdoğan, however, when AKP came to the power, criticism level of Doğan reduced reasonably. However, according to their statements, in
2006, they met to discuss Doğan’s Hilton Hotel property. Doğan wanted to build public houses in his property but he could not get the necessary paperwork to start the construction. According to Erdoğan, Doğan threatened him with exposing the prime minister and AKP to the public through his media outlets. In 2008, the fallout between
Erdoğan and Doğan escalated even further because of a foundation called Deniz Feneri
(Light House). DMG constantly made reports that money raised for charity was used to support pro-government associations and institutions in Turkey. 1 In September 2008, convictions regarding the Light House were handed down. However, DMG was found guilty of various tax frauds and false reports of income. These chain of events started the downfall of the DMG and Doğan sold his media group to another famous pro-government conglomerate, Demirören Group, in 2018 (Silverman, 2014). 2
Other than using bureaucratic and political methods, AKP is also applying excessive censorship and adopting punishing methods against the media outlets and journalists that are not ‘’pro-government’’. According to the Reporters Sans Frontiers
(RSF), there are 234 professional journalists, 134 citizen journalists and 14 media assistants imprisoned in Turkey. According to the same organization, Turkey ranked
154th in the press freedom index. That being said, AKP also has an endeavour to create their own media ‘’empire’’ utilizing imperialistic methods. Imperialism is by definition means ‘’the tendency to build empire’’ and in the 20th-century, imperialism takes a new
20 form within the capitalist system and succedes the conventional capitalism which is based on ‘’competition’’ and overthrows the competition in capitalism by forming monopolies
(Tanilli, 2012). Following that definition, AKP creates its own ‘’monopoly’’ over the media by eliminating the opposition and converting every state-owned media outlet into a pro-government one, and they are suppressing the media outlets that are not pro- government by taking legal actions using the tactics mentioned above. The
‘’imperialistic’’ methods of AKP government show itself at the point when they make the ‘’capitalists’’ of Turkey -who are known for their pro-government political opinions- buy-out the media outlets in Turkey. AKP government is also supporting them with subversions and tax deductions when they want to acquire media outlets. That strategy made AKP control a considerable amount of media outlets in Turkey over time (Ayan,
2019).
There are many umbrella terms for the media outlets who are supportive of the AKP government. These terms are coined both by public and academics; one of them is ‘’pool media’’ which is named because it refers to the media outlets that ordered to be bought by the pro-government businessmen. Another one is ‘’partisan media’’ which is an umbrella term for the media outlets that are confirming every act of the government without questioning. In this study, we will use the term ‘’pro-government media’’ since it is the most formal term, and it is also comprehensible by people that are not part of the
Turkish reality.
Since we discussed the appropriate media theories for our study. In the next chapter, we will discuss which theory applies to the media and political relations in
Turkey. We will be doing that by comparing the way AKP dominates the media outlets and the theories we had mentioned previously.
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2.4. AKP Government, CNN Effect & Manufacturing Consent
By following previous studies made on authoritarian and liberal media theories, we can only speak of media being the driving force of foreign policy and public opinion in an environment that the press has uncontested freedom. Media has to be accepted, respected, and protected since the media institutions ensure the right of people to gain the correct information about the events. However, political parallelism of the
Turkish media sphere is making the possible influence of media on foreign policy nearly impossible.
Hallin and Mancini (2004) coined the term ‘’political parallelism’’ to explain how politics are going on a par with the media environment. They put out five dimensions to explain the political parallelism: political orientations and bias of professional journalists (1), Correlation between media and political parties (2), Personnel being the ex-members of political parties (3), A career dependent on political status (4) and partisanship (5). Employing those factors as a guideline, we can give a few examples in
AKP government to guide us about the relations between AKP and media outlets. Media outlets such as Yeni Şafak, Milliyet, Yeni Akit are only writing the reports that support the government, and some of the journalists had various tasks in AKP; some of them were ex-journalists that are taking tasks in AKP while some of them were the members of AKP and then returned to journalism. Şamil Tayyar, Ömer Çelik, Yalçın Akdoğan, Yiğit Bulut, can be given as an example to these people.
Before the AKP government, Özal had started a liberalization movement that allowed media conglomerates to form up. These conglomerates had various types of political beliefs (Akser & Baybars-Hawks, 2012). While the journalism conditions and press freedom of Turkey were not ideal, we can safely say that the media environment of
Turkey was much more liberal. With the light of Hallin & Mancini’s work and examination of the media environment in Turkey, we can spot that the media environment 22 of Turkey and politics are not only parallel but they are also inseparable. In that sense, we cannot speak of an environment that would allow media to drive foreign policy.
Besides as we mentioned in the previous chapters, freedom of journalists is confined in
Turkey.
AKP government occasionally applies authoritarian methods to suppress journalists and ensure their silence, and sometimes these methods can go as far as an
Orwellian type of surveillances. However, how they approach the media conglomerates are completely different from how they approach journalist individuals. How AKP approaches media conglomerates can be explained as an inverse version of the propaganda model of Herman & Chomsky. Ciner Group, Uzan Group, and Doğan Group all had one thing in common: they were forced to leave their groups because of economic- political reasons. Ciner’s and Uzan’s outlets were seized by SDIF while Doğan had to deal with hefty tax penalties. However, they did not go out of the competition because
AKP illegally seized them. All of these three media outlets had either economical problems or they involved in tax frauds, and again these outlets legally acquired by pro- government businessmen, all done within the limits constitution.
The particular difference in the approach of AKP against media conglomerates and individual journalists manifests the reason why the ‘’manufacturing consent’’ approach is more suitable for our study. AKP uses both authoritarian means and also ‘’subtle’’ means to achieve the ultimate control over the media in Turkey. While they suppress the journalists with surveillance defamation and juridical suppression, they also suppress the media conglomerates by ensuring the critical media conglomerates are being owned by pro-government businessmen one by one. Although this ensuring process is done through economic and legal means, the coercion AKP government inflicted upon those conglomerates is mostly economical and juridical.
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Since our study is based on the media outlets and dominance of media outlets in our example does not happen with authoritarian means, the authoritarian theories of the media studies will not be suitable for this thesis. AKP government made this media dominance possible by using legal means, thus, following the ‘’manufacturing consent’’ theory perfectly suits to our study and explains the media and AKP government relations.
That being said, media still has a significant role to define the salience of foreign policy for the people. Foreign affairs events often take place beyond the realm of personal experience—if we learn about these events, it is almost surely the product of media coverage (Soroka, 2003). In the case of Turkey and AKP, pro-government media outlets dominate the media scene in Turkey. As a result, the public mostly gains information about foreign policy from pro-government media outlets. Pro-government media outlets employ various discourses to justify their foreign policy goals on Turkey. One of them, which is the topic of our study, is using historical relations to form a narrative. To get a greater grasp of how AKP and pro-government media outlets employ historical relations to form a specific narrative, we have to look into the history of Turkish-Russian relations.
Next chapter will be dedicated to the Turkish-Russian relations throughout history, however, the reader should be informed that these relations will mostly consist of modern- day Turkish-Russian relations.
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3. HISTORY OF TURKISH-RUSSIAN RELATIONS
Throughout history, the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire were generally the two sides having some form of conflict because of their contradicting interests. They conflicted for reasons such as influencing the Balkans, Caucasus, and
Asia. Later, these conflicts were mostly based on the politics of European powers but the wars happened earlier mostly happened because of Russia’s policy of wanting a port on the Black Sea and Ottoman Empire wanting to improve its influence over the Black Sea and Eastern Europe (Dowling, 2014). If we include the Caucasus campaign in World War
I, there are 123 wars that happened between Russian and Turkish sides, which had begun with the first conflict at the 1568-1570 Russo-Turkish War.
Before the 19th century, both sides fought because of their interests. However, by the end of the 19th century, both sides sucked into conflicts because of their alliances and grievances against other nations. This political mess was especially visible after the
Russian empire had seized Crimea as a client state (Dowling, 2014). All the conflicts after the seizing of Crimea were the conflicts that occurred on a much larger scale. For that reason, it would be more convenient to start from Crimean War since it is the first major conflict that involved other significant powers in that era. In the following chapters, starting from the 1853-1856 Crimean War, we will get into Russian and Turkish relations, which also will include modern-day Turkey and Russia relations and also the relations of the USSR and Turkey. In the modern era relations, we will also include commerce and diplomatic relations. Then we will finalize the chapter by explaining how the ‘’ancient enemy’’ image of Russia has constructed because of historical reasons.
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3.1. LATE OTTOMAN ERA
3.1.1. Crimean War (1853-1856)
After the years of conflict, the Russian Empire was changing its policy to protect the integrity of the Ottoman Empire because it did not want the Ottoman Empire to fall into European protectorate. Russian Empire supported the Ottoman Empire when
Muhammad Ali of Egypt started an uprising against the Ottoman Empire. After that,
Russain Empire signed the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca with Ottoman Empire. However, the upper hand gained by Russian Empire from the agreement did not last long because of the emerging question of the holy lands between Orthodox Russia and Catholic Europe which will be acknowledged by historians as Question d’Orient (Eastern Question)
(Armaoğlu, 1997).
In these circumstances, the Ottoman Empire sought help from the French
Empire against imminent Russian threat which led the Russian Empire to plan for the dismantling the Ottoman Empire. Soon, the British Empire weighed in into the political turmoil, which caught the Russian Tsar by surprise. Following these events, Russia started its military aggression towards Danubian Principalities, which soon after followed by fleets sent by the British and French Empire to the area.
After the declaration of war by Sultan Abdülmecid, Ottoman Empire officially started the war against the Russian Empire. With the aid of the British and
French Empire, the Ottoman Empire was standing victorious. It was a military disaster for the Russian Empire. They lost approximately 500.000 troops at the end of the war, and as a result of the Paris Treaty, the Russian Navy was expelled from the Black Sea
(Kozelsky, 2012). The importance of this war for the Russian-Turkish relations is the fact that, with the involvement of the French and British Empire, this war carried Russo-
Turkish wars on a global scale.
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3.1.2. Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)
Following the defeat at the Crimean War, Russian intellectuals learned that they could not deal with the significant European forces only by themselves.
Subsequently, Russian intellectuals adopted a new political philosophy called Pan-
Slavism, which was the idea of the political unity of Slavic nations under the leadership of Russia. Russian Empire soon put this idea into practice and started to influence Balkan countries with that idea, and soon the insurgencies against the Ottoman Empire started to occur on the Balkans. Ottoman Empire tried to stop these revolts by the usage of force, but the revolts were overwhelming for the Ottoman Empire (Armaoğlu, 1997).
Russians saw these turn of events as an opportunity and ignored the ‘’Russian
Empire cannot embark its navy on the Black Sea’’ article of the Paris Treaty, which was signed after the Crimean War. Their argument for ignoring the article was the unification of Italy, and Prussia was a threat for their security; for that reason, they had to embark their navy on the Black Sea to ensure their security and integrity. In 1877, April 24th,
Russians launched their offensive to Wallachia and Moldavia.
Russian Empire tried to force the Ottoman Empire to fight both on the east and the west. Osman Nuri Pasha defended the Plevna for a long time and eventually,
Russians got control over Plevna. After that, Russians marched through Istanbul without any serious threat from the Ottoman Empire. The Eastern campaign of the Russian
Empire was not that successful as the Western campaign because the resistance against the Russian Empire was on a ‘’total war’’ scale, and the Eastern campaign targeted mainland Ottoman Empire.
While the Ottoman Empire put a valiant effort on some fronts, it was an utter military disaster for the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Empire saw the Russians near their
27 capital, which eventually forced the Ottoman Empire to make a peace treaty that forced to leave the almost entire eastern part of Ottoman territory to Russia.
3.2. Turning Tides: First World War and New Structures
After the post-industrial revolution era, Europe was in a stalemate. Every nation was seeking new territory and resources. Eventually, it led to a conflict on a global scale. In the First World War, the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were on the opposing sides. Russia was on the Allied powers while the Ottoman Empire was on
Central powers. In this chapter, we will talk about the conflicts between the Ottoman
Empire and Russia and the changing political structures of these two countries.
3.2.1.1. Caucasus Front (1914-1918)
Caucasus Front is the front that shows the romantic ambitions of both sides.
It shows the ambition of the Russian Empire to gain a foothold in the Eastern Anatolia permanently and cripple any resistance probability against the Russian Empire. Ottoman
Empire was fighting that front because of the ambition of uniting the Turkic nations and tribes under the Ottoman banner (Keegan, 1999). The turning point for that campaign was at the very beginning of it: Sarıkamış Operation. Enver Pasha planned a counter-attack against Russian foothold at Sarıkamış, and he wanted to utilize his superior numbers against the Russians and finish the campaign before it even really started. After he got the permission of his peers, he started the operation. Ottoman army nearly lost an entire battalion because of the shortage of supplies and winter atrocities, and only a small amount of the troops managed to return to the main Ottoman military base. After that failure, Russians were able to sweep the Ottomans through the central Anatolia. However, the Russian Empire was also facing harsh conditions on its mainland, such as food shortages and economic problems. In the end, years of conflict finally took its toll from the Russian Empire, and the inevitable happened: the Russian Revolution.
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3.2.2. A New Dawn for Nations
Following the dethroning of the Tsar and execution of the Romanov Family,
Bolsheviks initiated a second revolution under the leadership of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and marked the beginning of Soviet Russia. First, they left all their arms to ethnic minorities that they support in the warzones of World War I and second, they revealed a bunch of secret agreements made by the Allies, which also included the sharing of the
Ottoman Empire among the Allies. Soon after, the war was finished, and the Ottoman
Empire was on the defeated side and its territory was occupied by Allied forces.
Following the year 1919, Turks started a movement in the Anatolia and resisted these occupying forces, and soon after, initiated War of Independence against Greece, who was being supported by the British Empire. War of Independence was the turning point of the
Turkish-Russian relations since Soviet Russia now helping the Turkish endeavour by sending the Turks thousands of firearms and millions of ammunition (Oran, 2001). After the Treaty of Moscow (1921), Soviet Russia officially recognized the Government of
Grand National Assembly, which will be the constituent assembly of the Republic of
Turkey on October 29, 1923.
3.2.3. Cold War Era
One of the reasons why Soviet Russia supported Turkey was the fact that they perceived Turkey as a combatant against imperialism. Since Turkey won the war, they wanted to continue that relationship at a strategic level. Turkey, as a new state, was not in a position to have any kind of problems with Soviet Russia. As long as Soviet Russia did not cross the redline defined by the Turkish officials, relations were supposed to go without any complications. Here are the ‘’redlines’’ defined by Turkish officials:
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1) Any request violating the territorial integrity of Turkey determined in Misak-i
Milli (National Agreement – the document that enunciated the basic principles of
the Turkish independence movement as well as Turkish territories);
2) Any attempt to bring the communist regime in Turkey;
3) Any requests on the straits against Turkish interests (Ulgul, 2010)
The first serious disagreement between the two powers was the Montreux
Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits. USSR wanted to open the straits and threatened Turkey: ‘’a small nation’’ like Turkey could not stop the USSR, but Turkey did not open the straits regardless of the threats of the USSR.
Following World War II, relations were problematic because of the balance policy adopted by Turkey. Turkey, by any means, was not in a position to have a second global conflict, so the Turkish Republic tried to balance the scale by not refusing or accepting any offers completely. That also included the straits policy. USSR wanted the
Turkish side to close the straits to Germany and Italy. USSR claimed that Montreux
Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits is not convenient for the political environment of the time and wanted an agreement which will favour itself in World War
II and requested a ‘’change’’ regarding the eastern borders of Turkey -which involves the acquirement of the Turkish cities of Kars and Ardahan- and a military base on the straits.
Turkey did not accept the Russian demands. In the last phases of the war, Turkey declared war on Germany and seized the German battleships in the straits.
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Soviet-Turkish Soviet Determinant Objectives of Relations Influence on Factors in Turkey Foreign Policy Relations 1920-1939 high medium Balance of To keep power in following international balance of relations power policy 1939-1945 medium high Soviet Not to enter demands in into World 1939 War II 1945-1953 low high Soviet Security demands in arrangement 1945 and the with the US Cold War 1953-1960 high low Cold War and Being a Turkish regional interests power, economical aids Table 1: A comprehensive look into how Russia and Turkey relations between 1920-1960 (Ulgul, 2010).
The aggressive attitude of the Soviet Union led Turkey to call out for help from the Western world. This turn of events ultimately led President Harry Truman to declare a doctrine to help Greece and Turkey against the Soviet threat. That was a turning point for Turkish foreign policy because accepting help from the US was a manifestation of
Turkey that will be a part of the Western world. 4 Following the Korean War and missile crisis in 1962, Turkey clinched its position in the Western world and continued to be a part of the Western Bloc throughout the Cold War era. Korean War was important for the fact that the Korean War further strengthened the affiliation of Turkey with its Western allies and paved the way of Turkey for the NATO membership (Akkaya, 2012).
Following the same vein, the Cuban Missile Crisis which started with USSR deploying missiles with nuclear warheads to Cuba, which followed by U.S deployment of nuclear
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Jupiter missiles to Turkey has also further strengthened the bonds between Turkey and
Western Bloc (Baharçiçek, 2010).
Figure 1: U.S' plans to aid Turkey against the communist threat
3.2.4. Fall of USSR and Modern Day Russia-Turkey Relations
USSR was formed with the blood of people; revolutions, and war. A world goliath of a state that once made the world tremble, dissolved relatively fast, and quiet.
In 1991, USSR flags were downed and Russian were flags raised in many cities in
Russia5. With the visit of the president of Turkish Republic, Süleyman Demirel at 25-26
May 1992 and signing of ‘’Türkiye Cumhuriyeti ile Rusya Federasyonu Arasındaki
İlişkilerin Esasları Hakkında Antlaşma6’’ marked the new era between Turkey and Russia
(Özbay, 2011).
Modern-day Russian and Turkish relations can be explained with two terms: competition and co-operation. Russia and Turkey share almost cordial relations at the economic level. Trade volume between Russia and Turkey is indisputable for both states and also these states are in great coordination regarding the Black Sea politics. However,
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Russian-Turkish relations were a field of disagreements in the political arena. Kelkitli
(2017) spotted four areas of political disagreements; (1) Clashing positions in the South
Caucasus politics, (2) Low-intensity rivalry for influencing Central Asia, (3) Chechen and
Kurdish matters and (4) Rivalry in Middle East Politics. Following the points spotted by
Mrs Kelkitli, we will have a look into what shapes the modern-day Russian-Turkish relations.
3.2.4.1. South Caucasus Politics
Turmoil in South Caucasus politics occurs because of clashing positions of
Russia in Turkey at two important matters. First one is the clashing interests of Turkey and Russia over Georgia and second is clashing interests over the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. After the fall of the USSR, old USSR states started to search for new co- operations throughout the world. Georgia, by the start of early 2000s, became one of the most important regional partners of Turkey. Turkey did various amounts of arms trade with Georgia and also replaced Russia and became the biggest trade partner of Georgia by the late 1990s (Sezer, 2000). In the early 90s, Abkhazia and South Ossetia declared independence and Russia involved in the 91-92 South Ossetia War in Abkhazia, which made Russia become an adversary of Georgia. Georgia countered that strategy by increasing its dialogue with the Western world and created partnerships with NATO while effectively closing down several Russian military bases. To assert its dominance in
Georgia and support the separatist groups, Russia launched a full-scale assault on Georgia in the summer of 2008. Pragmatically, Turkey supported the territorial integrity of
Georgia and supported Georgia’s joining process to NATO and by the time this study is written Turkey is still supporting Georgia in the joining process7 (Kelkitli, 2017).
Among all the Newly Independent States, Azerbaijan held a unique position in Turkish perception and policies. Relations were damaged a bit after the Heydar
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Aliyev’s coup d’etat but the realpolitik of the region forced Azerbaijan into embracing
Turkey as a ‘’big brother’’. In the mid-90s, Azerbaijan and Turkey founded strong bonds since Turkey has sent Azerbaijan weapons and organized military training to Azerbaijani soldiers. Azerbaijan holds a unique place among the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) since it is the only state that has not allowed Russia to open a military base on its soil (Sezer, 2000). Azerbaijan will never perceive Russia as an ally with its actions after the dissolution of the USSR. Russia and the CIS responded it with supporting the separatist groups and Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. CIS wanted to isolate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from international intervention. They even threatened
Turkey with a possible ‘’World War 3’’ if Turkey were to intervene in the war. 8 After the war, Azerbaijan became even more distant to Russia and closer to the Western world.
Relations of Azerbaijan with Turkey became even more cordial with co-operations in the military and energy fields. With one side blocked by Azerbaijan and the other by Turkey,
Armenia became almost dependent on Russia in every possible way. By the time this study is written Nagorno-Karabakh resumes to be a problem yet to be solved.
3.2.4.2. Rivalry in Central Asia
Dramatic changes in politics after 1989 forced European powers to evaluate different foreign policy tactics and Turkey was not an exception to that. Because of the cultural similarities, Turkey wanted to extend its zone of influence over the Turkic speaking world. At the same time, Russia wanted to maintain the Russian influence which was built over the lifespan of the USSR (Sander, 1994). In the post-Cold War era, Turkey aggressively tried to gain political influence over Central Asia. Turkey increased its trade relations and opened education institutions with Turkic countries. However, the relation between Russia and Turkic countries was closer to a strategical level. Russia led Central
Asia and systematized its co-operation with the Central Asian countries and rallied them around organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Eurasian Economic 34
Community, and Collective Security Treaty Organization. However, the rivalry between
Turkey and Russia subsided noticeably. In the early 2000s, Turkey and Russia begin a new co-operation in Central Asia to support the development of these countries (Kelkitli,
2017). The rivalry between Turkey and Russia never escalated on a possible ‘’trade war’’ or ‘’cold war’’ state. The rivalry between Russia and Turkey was based on regional influence yet it was still persistent, thus, it is more convenient to call it a ‘’low-intensity rivalry’’.
3.2.4.3. Chechen and Kurdish Questions
Minority questions and terror attacks had been an evident problem for both
Turkey and Russia. Russia’s Chechen question dates fare as back as the resistance of
Chechens against imperial Russia’s invasions while the Kurdish question of Turkey dates far as back as the Ottoman Empire years (Morrissette, 2010; Yeğen, 2007). These two minority questions are still persistent in the reality of Russia and Turkey and these questions also involve military conflicts. Boris Yeltsin adopted a policy and encouraged the national republics to have greater autonomy which led the Chechen parliament to declare the intention of seceding from the USSR. A year after, Soviet general Dzhokhar
Dudayev came to power in Chechnya shortly after the August coup but his administration produced dissatisfaction among Chechens. Dissatisfaction led to rebellion and the First
Chechen War began with Russian military intervention but Russia could not get a decisive result at the war (Morrissette, 2010). In the late 90s, several terror acts occurred in Russia, and Russian administrators tied most of these events to Chechen groups. Russian apartment bombings were the straw that broke the camel’s back for the Russians. They used these bombings as a pretext to wage a war again on Chechnya and eventually won a decisive victory at the end of the war (Bruce Ware, 2005).
35
According to Ergil (2000), the new elite in Turkey did not form its unity based on diversity. All minorities in Turkey had to adopt a Turkish identity. In contrast, Kurds assimilated themselves further along the mountains in the Southeastern Anatolia Region and divided along the tribal lines. They were out of the political reach of Turkey at that time and they were mostly dependent on the local elites economically. Kurdish unrest in
Turkey became a full-scale rebellion on two occasions; Sheikh Said rebellion and Dersim rebellion. These rebellions quelled by Turkey decisively and eventually made Kurds distance themselves even further from the state. Youth movements that rocked the world in the 1960s also affected Turkey and created a vibrant leftist sphere in Turkey. However, the unstable nature of politics at that time and lack of visionary leadership in these movements paved the way for adventurists and inexperienced cadres to resort to armed struggle. The most prominent figure of the armed struggle was Abdullah Öcalan who was the leader of the PKK until he was captured. During and after the leadership of Öcalan,
PKK caused Kurdish movement to lose all its legitimacy since their acts involved the civilian bombings, drug deals, and alike, which eventually led Turkey to fight the PKK even more aggressively (Güney, 2011). PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization by the EU, US, NATO, UN, and regional countries such as Iran, Iraq. By the time this study made, Turkey is still fighting against PKK and its branches relentlessly, not only in
Turkey but it also organizes cross-frontier operations in Iraq and Syria.
What ties the Kurdish question and Chechnia question is that these questions are sensitive spots for both countries. Russia does not trust Turkey completely in the
Chechen question because the largest Chechen diaspora is in Turkey (approx. 100.000).
Russia believed that Turkey was trying to interfere with the affairs of Russia by employing its Chechen diaspora but the Turkish government at that time positioned itself to stay neutral and declared that Chechnia is the internal problem of Russia. Yet, Turkey never ceased to send humanitarian aid to Chechnia but Russia accused Turkey of sending
36 arms to Chechens (Kelkitli, 2017). Following these accusations, Russia played the
Kurdish question card. Russia organized conferences to discuss the problems of Kurds in
Russia and they discussed in their parliaments about recognition of the Kurdish
Parliament in Exile (PKDW) and never declared PKK as a terrorist organization and by the year 2020, Russia still does not recognize PKK as a terrorist organization.
3.2.4.4. Middle East Politics
The final point of competition between Russia and Turkey is the rivalry in the
Middle East Politics. Both countries being active participants at the power politics in the area, the Middle East is an important aspect for both countries foreign policies. These countries are on the opposing side almost every important political occurrence in the
Middle East. In 2011, the wind of revolution blew through the Egypt and Hosni
Moubarak had been overthrown from the power. AKP government actively supported and still supports the first democratically elected Head of the State of Egypt Mohamed
Morsi. However, Morsi is a member of the movement ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ but this movement is marked as a terrorist organisation by Russia, which makes the relations between Turkey and Russia strained (Kelkitli, 2017).
Another problematic item is the positions of Turkey in Libya. Leader of the
Libya Muammar Gaddafi was not eager to give up the power with the protests going on
Libya and Libyan army managed to drive the protesters away. After the involvement of
NATO and the killing of the Gaddafi, Turkey was quick to accept the new political environment (Kelkitli, 2017). Again Russia was uncomfortable with the involvement of the UN and NATO since they had great economic relations with Libya (Erşen, 2014).
The next area of the competition is Syria, which engendered the event that this thesis is founded on. Syria and USSR had good relations throughout the Cold War and these good relations also carried to the post-cold war era. Syrian Civil War can be
37 defined as the chokepoint of the Arab Spring movements. Russia is not willing to give up on a reliable ally in the region while most of the West oriented countries -including
Turkey- acknowledged Asad as an enemy (Erşen, 2014). Besides, the area is torn between the clashes of the minority conflicts, extremist terrorism and interests of the regional and global powers (Flanagan, 2013; Totten, 2015). Russia and Syria organized joint operations under the pretext of fighting terrorism and they have also bombed Turkmen regions in the area. The strings between Turkey and Russia became completely ruptured when Turkey downed the SU-24 jet on November 24, 2015 (Kelkitli, 2017).
Regardless of all of these political disagreements. Turkey and Russia never completely abolished their relations because of one important pragmatic aspect: the economy. Our next chapter will be about the dynamics of the commercial relations between Russia and Turkey.
3.2.4.5. Commercial Relations
Russia never perceived Turkey as a close ally or partner because of the clashing political interests and Turkey’s cordial ties with the Western world. However, what makes Turkey and Russia indispensable to each other is their volume of economic relations. Turkey’s being a part of the Western Bloc limited its commercial relations with
USSR. However, economic relations started to be established after the dissolution of the
USSR in the early 90s (Kelkitli, 2017) and boomed when Vladimir Putin came to power in the early 2000s as Turkey wanted to have a relationship based on a concept of win-win
(Topsakal, 2016). Turkey wanted to expand its trade volume by trading with Russia,9 especially selling agricultural products to Russia10 , and Russia wanted another market to sell their natural resources such as oil and gas. That being said, Turkey and Russia are effectively co-operating in the energy field. Two countries are building gas pipes for
38 transferring the Russian natural gas to Europe. Also, in 2010 Turkey and Russia reached an agreement of building a nuclear power plant in Turkey.11
OEC data shows that, Russia exports goods to Turkey in a total of 12.9 billion
$. These values are mostly natural resources like natural gas and oil. Turkey exports goods valued 3.4 billion $, mostly consisting of agricultural products.12 13 From these data, it can be seen that commercial relations between Turkey and Russia asymmetrical because
Turkey is dependent on Russia concerning energy.14
Throughout the 2010s, Russia and Turkey have shared stable relations that mostly based on trade. Some unfortunate events occurred in the 2010s, such as the slaying of Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov in Turkey.15 President Erdogan and Putin quickly announced that these acts are provocation, and this unfortunate act will not harm the good relations between Turkey and Russia.16 Also, Turkey openly supported Ukraine in the
Crimea crisis and sided with NATO and the European Union.17 As we mentioned earlier, on November 24, 2015, Turkey downed a Russian plane because of a violation of airspace. This act made relations strained, Russian president Vladimir Putin perceived this incident as an act of ‘’backstabbing,’’, but relations calmed down when Turkey decided to buy S-400 air defence system from Russia. The next chapter will be about how this ‘’normalization of relations’’ became a reality and will be about how the narrative and discourse changed between the period of the downing of Russian jet and acquirement of S-400 by Turkey.
3.3. Construction of an Eternal Enemy
As one can guess Russian-Turkish relations were mostly unstable throughout history. Besides, Russia mostly had the upper hand and conflicts with the Russian Empire was one of the prime reasons for the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Founding roots from these conflicts and defeats handed by Russians caused Turkish society to develop coping
39 mechanisms. Turkish people at the time were perceiving Russians as the devil incarnate.
As long as it is inflicted by a power that is not an enemy of Turkey, the defeat of Russians from their other wars was a ray of sunshine for Turkish society. Coping mechanisms of
Turkish society included the fortification of the ‘’might of the Turkish nation’’ while degrading the Russian nation and their values. Mixed with the fear and hatred against
Russia, a pejorative image of Russia has been born. Cold War period also added the ‘’fear of communism’’ to these myths and images. Intellectual sphere of the late Ottoman
Empire and early Republic of Turkey days, all these myths and images had an umbrella term: ‘’Moskof (literally means Moscovian)’’ (Öztan, 2012).
In Turkish literature, the term Moskof is used for the personification of
Russia. According to the prominent literary figures -especially the highly nationalist ones- the struggle against the Moskof is eternal. Because, starting from the 19th Century, Russia is the main catalyst of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and is an ancient enemy that
Turkish people cannot be able to cope with. Combined with the ‘Red Scare’, the Moskof image is one of the prominent reasons why Turkish society cannot make peace with the
Russian image.
At this point, it would be convenient to mention the ‘anti-communist’ agenda of Turkey which begins from the very foundation of the Republic of Turkey. Foundation of Turkey bases itself to the idea of the nationalism. As a ‘nation-state’ Turkey never perceived the communism as an option but the decision-makers of Turkey not only ignored the communism as an option but they also effectively campaigned against it.
Turkey perceived the communism as an instrument of Russian expansionism, which devours all the cultural values of the countries. For that reason, Turkey perceived Russia as a threat. Arguably, hate and fear against Moskof and communism are among the reasons why Turkey chose to be part of the Western bloc and sought the alliance from the
U.S in the Cold War Era (Yıldırmaz, 2014). 40
4. REPRESENTATION OF THE CRISIS ON THE PRO-GOVERNMENT
MEDIA
To understand the plane downing crisis between Turkey and Russia, we must understand what led Turkey to shoot down the plane in the first place. In this chapter, we will mention how the Turkish state came to the point of striking down the Russian fighter jet, and we will review the news about the event. After that, we will try to explain how the political environment evolved to the point that the Turkish state opting for acquiring the S-400 air defence system from Russia and how pro-government media outlets covered this subject. After that, we will compare the two discourses and hopefully show the reader the discoursive difference between this period.
4.1. Downing of the Russian Plane
In 2012, Turkish F4 model reconnaissance jet was downed by the Syrian regime, and a bomb hit the town Akcakale in Sanliurfa. Shortly after, Turkey sought the help of NATO for protecting its Syrian border, which reaches more than 900 kilometres long. NATO countries agreed on helping Turkey to ensure the border security of Turkey.
Six MIM-104 Patriot air defence system batteries arrived from Holland, Germany, and the USA. These batteries were installed along the Syrian border on the Turkish cities of
Kahramanmaras, Adana and Gaziantep.18
While these events are happening, the ISIS crisis was raging on a full scale in the Middle East. ISIS was a common enemy for every actor in that region, and nearly every country in the world was trying to find a solution to the ISIS threat. ISIS was being bombed continuously by Turkey, the USA, and Russia at that time.19 Then, the USA decided to pull back its Patriot systems from Turkey with the pretext of the installation of upgrades to the system. Turkish officials stated that it is not the best timing to pull out the systems from Turkey since the borders are still in danger. Also, Russian planes were
41 violating the airspace of Turkey while bombing ISIS in Syria. 20 Then at the date of
November 24, 2015, the Russian fighter jet was downed by Turkish fighter jets after warning the Russian jet multiple times.
4.1.1. Reflections on Downing of Russian Plane on Pro-Government Media
To understand the arguments of pro-government media, first, we have to understand the foreign policy of AKP, especially in Syria. To do so, we will try to explain briefly how the government policy of AKP changed over time. When AKP first came to power in 2002, they had an agenda that can be shortly explained as integrating Turkey into the Western world without losing touch with the Islamist roots. Indeed, the AKP government was devoted to the joining process to the European Union; at the same time keeping relatively fruitful political relations with the Middle Eastern countries. In their third term, AKP government shifted its policy from pro-EU and reformist policies to the
’saviour of the oppressed’ policy which can be explained as AKP government's support for the protesters who revolted against the status quo of Arab countries. That being said,
AKP also openly supported the movements against Bashar al-Assad, which was the next wave of the Arab Spring (Kirdiş, 2015).
Foreign affairs minister at that time, Ahmet Davutoğlu, was trying to implement two crucial policies into Turkish foreign policy: ’zero problems with neighbours’ and ’strategical depth’. Strategical depth can be understood as the AKP government's framing of their version of nationalism into political literature (Saraçoğlu
& Demirkol, 2015). The policy of ’zero problems with neighbours’ backfired because of both internal and external reasons. First of all, the government responded to the protestors in the Gezi movement with excessive force that broke the moderate Islamist and tolerant perception of AKP in Europe. Secondly, the strategic depth strategy failed because of
AKP government tried to get involved in almost every country that they believed they are
42 oppressed. In the end, involvement in the internal affairs of other countries backfired in
Syria, which was the confirmation of that ’depth’ was too much for Turkish foreign policy
(Kirdiş, 2015). Following these internal and external difficulties, Turkey again adopted a defensive stance in foreign policy, meaning, Turkey now creates its foreign policy narrative on territorial integrity and national security of itself, with adopting a more nationalistic approach in its policies (Kirdiş, 2015).21
Our first example is the news from newspaper Yeni Şafak with the title of
‘’We shot down the Russian plane’’.22 In the summary section of the article, it says:
Proxy wars in Syria evolved into a conventional war. One of the
Russian planes that dropped bombs on Turkmens in Bayır Bucak was destroyed by
our (Turkish) war jets when it entered the border (Turkey) in Yayladağı. Ankara
went to alert mode after the incident. NATO set up an extraordinary meeting with
the demand of Turkey. The Prime Minister said: "We take every possible precaution
at the border, let this be known by the whole world.", while Putin said: "We were
shot behind us.".
According to Ethical Journalism Network there a five core values of ethical journalism: (a) a journalist should be ensured that the report is accurate and correct, (b) a journalist should be independent and should not have any influence from any other third party, (c) a journalist should be able to have more than one perspective and should try to be as impartial as possible, (d) a journalist must be aware of the weight of his/her words, meaning, a journalist should not harm anyone and finally (e) a journalist should take the full responsibility of the news that he reported. In short, we can list these values as follows; truth and accuracy, independence, impartiality, humanity, and accountability.
These are essential parameters to consider when evaluating the ethical values of the journalists. If the presented news lacks one of these values, it means that the news is trying
43 to alter the truth or choosing a political side and alike. In our cases, the reports are altered to construct a narrative to help the political power to achieve some foreign affairs goals.
Returning to our first report, two spot-on signs that show us this piece of journalism is prepared to achieve some political gain. First things first, we can spot the usage of pronoun ’we’ in the article. There are series of questions can be asked about this particular ’we’, such as who are ‘we’ exactly: Turkish state? Turkish people? The Turkish
Republic and its allies? Or NATO? Using pronouns while reporting news is problematic in that regard. The second sign can be explanatory to the first one and reveals the
‘’historical justification’’ of the reported news, which is the implementation of Turkmen population in the area. It is problematic because there is no concrete evidence of this downed Russian fighter jet is ‘’bombing the Turkmens’’ in the region, which means that this news could not be true or accurate in the first place. Even if the report is misleading, it reveals the intention of historical justification of the report. After the fall of the USSR,
Turkey has been seen as a model country for Turkic Nations (Sander, 1994), and in recent history, on September 3, 2009, Turkic council was formed.23 Because of the active nationalist policy of AKP government, Turkey has an aim to be a vanguard for the Turkic minorities all around the world, which enables the reporter to create a narrative of ‘’We
(government or power) shot down the fighter jet because they were bombing our Turkic brothers (Turkmens)’’. Nevertheless, this narrative is problematic, and it shows that Yeni
Şafak sacrificed journalism ethics for supporting the government's political aim.
Yeni Akit followed the same pattern with a slight twist in their narrative. Yeni
Akit tried to implement the NATO into their narrative by using the title of ‘’The first time in the history of NATO; a member shot down a Russian plane’’.24 Here is the body of the report.
44
Despite being warned ten times that it (the jet) violates the Syrian
border, the Russian Su-24 aircraft, which did not change its course, was shot down
by the Turkish F16s. The event that shakes up the world capitals has also marked
itself into NATO history. Founded in 1949 against the threat of Soviet Russia, it was
the first time in the history of NATO that a member state downed a Russian plane.
Following the argument of the report itself, even if Turkey -as a NATO ally- shot down a ‘’Russian’’ fighter jet, it is a known fact that it was not the first contact between NATO and Soviet Russia. Turkey acted as a vanguard against the Soviet threat during the Cold War era.25 While it is true that Turkey is the first country in the NATO that shot down a Russian jet, the Turkish Air Force did not do it on the behalf of NATO.
NATO was not involved in the act itself but involved in the aftermath to calm the crisis down.
Following that, NATO itself was not always a deterrent actor. NATO involved in many conflicts and events. The involvement of NATO in Afghanistan and
Libya can be given as an example. Especially involvement in Libya was reminiscent of an offensive rather than a deterrent act. Quartararo Sr, Rovenolt, and White (2012) believes that NATO’s involvement in Libya was an act to prevent the perception of the
US invading another Muslim country.
When one goes through all over that, it seems like NATO was implemented in the story to create a narrative of ‘’Turkey has a pivotal and active role in NATO’’ because neither it was the first military intervention of NATO nor NATO decided to shoot down the Russian plane. The addition of Turkey being the ‘’first to shot down a Russian jet’’ is added because of adding additional value to the report and for invoking a sense of grandeur for Turkey/Turkish public. However, mentioning of the Cold War era in tis report makes it an important example of how history can be implemented in the news to create a narrative. 45
Another pro-government newspaper, Sabah’s Europe edition Sabah Avrupa
(Europe), produced a narrative that revolves around the warning of Turkish officials to
Russian jet pilots. Title of the report is: ‘’Russian Plane Violated the Border and…’’ and the body of the report goes like this:
In Syria, Bayırbucak, near the Turkish border. SU-24 type Russian
fighter jet, which violated the rule of engagement of Turkish airspace was shot down.
The problem regarding this report is the fact that the author tried to pay attention to the event of Turkish officials warning the Russian pilots, which harms the professional appearance of the report. First of all, the title seems half-completed, which is not explanatory at all and appears like a clickbait.26 Second, the news is not written like it gives information about ‘’hard news’’. According to Pöttker (2003), hard news is a type of report that is considered a particularly objective form of reporting news (mostly refers to reporting of events), and they are reported with the ‘’inverted pyramid’’ technique. The inverted pyramid is a technique of writing the most important information first then writing in a gradually decreasing manner and finishing with the least important information. The inverted pyramid is a technique for organizing the information in the report. Here is a BBC report of the event can be considered a textbook to this definition with the title of: ‘’ Turkey shoots down a Russian warplane on Syria border’’:
Turkish warplanes have shot down a Russian military aircraft on the
border with Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Su-24 was hit by air-
to-air missiles fired by Turkish F-16s while it was flying over Syrian territory. But
Turkish military officials said the plane was engaged after being warned that it was
violating Turkish airspace.
Following that, report of Yeni Şafak seems to steer the information from the
Turkish pilots downing a Russian jet to the point of Turkish officials warning the Russian jet. It is a subtle narrative, but it is still noticeable. After all, the type of the report, which 46 is event reporting, requires giving the most essential information first then giving the rest in a descending manner in importance. One can steer the information in commentary or argument, but in an event reporting like this, one must follow the standards to avoid favouritism.
Paper version of Gunes in its November 25, 2015 edition did not even hide the Russian opposition in their report of the event. The title of the report was: ‘’They were spoilt too much, what is required has been done’’, and also in the middle section of the report there is a title of ‘’NATO acknowledged Turkey righteous’’. The report is made in a pejorative manner; it can be a part of literature with this usage of metonym but this rhetoric is not appropriate for an event journalism piece like that. Besides, the report is not objective and has a rather aggressive manner. Paper version of Sabah also did the same with its report dated same as Gunes’ report with the title of ‘’We are no longer can be held responsible, we have warned them ten times’’, and in the bottom left corner of the report the 44th president of the United States can be seen with the title of ‘’Turkey owns the right of defending its airspace’’. Again, pronouns such as ‘’we’’ are problematic in professional journalism because it harms the impartiality of the report.
Figure 2: Initial reports of Güneş and Sabah about the plane downing
47
From the reports, we can spot two recurring patterns in the discourse of pro- government in the coverages of this incident. (1) Russia violated the Turkish border many times and warned equally by Turkish officials. Eventually, Turkey defended its airspace by engaging the Russian jet and downing it. (2) Therefore, the right of self-defence of
Turkey is acknowledged by NATO and the US, which ultimately is the acknowledgement of the righteousness of Turkey in the crisis. These patterns, with the regard of historical narrative, can be interpreted in two perspectives. (1) Turkey will never allow the ever imperialistic and warmonger Russia to harass Turkey and will do what is necessary at the end. (2) Turkey as a part of the Western world from its foundation, will always be parallel and co-operative with the Western world and will oppose Russia when required. As an addition, Turkey will always protect their kin no matter what.
The short aftermath of the event was also following the same pattern, which mostly revolved around the narratives of ‘’Turkey did nothing and will not apologize by any means’’. In the next subchapter, we will continue with the news of the pro- government media shortly after the downing of the jet.
4.1.2. The Aftermath of the Incident
In the short aftermath of the incident, pro-government media mostly emphasized the accusations of Putin against the AKP government and the requests of him from Turkey. Putin accused AKP of partnering with ISIS in the Syrian region and requested an official apology from the government. As expected, pro-government media vehemently denied the accusations and created a narrative that Russia is the one to apologize and the accusations made by Putin are nothing but slanders. Also, some media outlets reversed the accusations made by Putin and asserted that the Russian government is the one that collaborates with ISIS and the Syrian government with the intention of legitimizing the oil in Syria.
48
On November 27, 2015 edition of Aksam tried to launch a counter-accusation against the Russian government. With the title of ‘’dirty partnership for ISIS' oil’’, the report was accusing Russia of being the end of the chain of oil partnership between ISIS, the Syrian government, and Russia. According to them, Russia was legitimizing the oil of ISIS by buying the oil from the Syrian government which acquired from the oil rigs occupied by ISIS. This argument is invalid because ISIS in itself is and never was a legitimate and accountable power. In fact, ISIS has been listed as a terrorist organization by many countries and supernational organizations, including the UN.27 The report mentions the oil-wells in Syria and Iraq, but since ISIS is a terrorist organization, the legitimate owners of these oil wells are Syria and Iraq. The report does not give any essential statistics about whose oil was sold to whom. Besides, since the legitimate owner of these oil plants in Syria, the Syrian government has the right to decide what to do with the oil-wells on its soil. As long as the legal parties and the process of selling is legitimate,
Syria decides whom to sell oil. That being said, the fact that this report not having any concrete proof that makes it a ‘’claim’’, not a report.
49
Figure 3: Report of Akşam regarding the oil of Syria Yeni Şafak, in its November 27, 2015 edition, headlined the report of president Erdogan’s statement about the incident and paraphrased it as ‘’Russia should apologize’’. The central part of the report was about the statement made by Erdogan:
‘’The ones who violated our space should apologize’’. There were also two sub-headers on the front page; one of them was: ‘’We will retaliate the same’’, meaning, if such an event happens again, Turkey will do the same thing again. The other subtitle was ‘’The oil bought by (Basher) eEsed’’, pointing out to the statements made by Erdogan: ‘’…we buy oil from certain providers, and we make the largest oil and natural gas import from
Russia, ISIS sells the petrol to the ESED whom you are supporting right now.’’.
50
Figure 4: Report of Yeni Şafak about ''Russia's awaited apology''.
Vatan, again in its November 27, 2015 edition made a headline about the same statement: ‘’They are the ones to apologize’’ emphasizing the same point as Yeni
Şafak: ‘’Turkey will retaliate the same.’’, and as a second title ‘’it is the duty of the pilot’’ which then points out that pilots did their duty with shooting down the Russian jet which violated the airspace. The report also adds the Erdogan’s attempt to speak with Putin on the phone, but this attempt was not successful since Putin did not pick-up the phone.
51
Figure 5: Report of Vatan about Erdoğan's statements of ''They should apologise!''
Another pro-government media outlet Takvim, again dated September 27,
2015, made the headline of ‘’we got shot from our back’’, which was remarkably similar to the statement made by Vladimir Putin.28 The report asserted that jets took off with the intention of bombing ISIS but they bombed the opposition force29 and Turkmen minorities in the area. The report also pointed out the so-called oil trade of Russia with the Syrian government and ISIS saying ‘’with this oil trade Russia stabbed the whole world on their back’’. The report also mentions Erdogan making a phone call to Putin but could not reach the Russian president.
52
Some of the prominent examples of how univocal are these pro-government media outlets are the November 28, 2015 editions of these new papers; Yeni Şafak, Yeni
Akit, and Vatan that all had the same title: ‘’Do not play with fire’’. These reports were referring to president Erdogan’s speech in the opening ceremony in the Turkish city of
Bayburt30, answering to Putin’s statements of ‘’whoever applies double standards to terrorism is playing with fire.’’. Erdogan’s reply was:
…I agree with this statement, (this is) true. Supporting Assad's regime that claims
380,000 lives in Syria and implements state terrorism, is also playing with fire—
putting out ISIS as an excuse to strike opposing force with international legitimacy,
yes, to play with fire. Using an incident, which the rightfulness of Turkey is accepted
in the whole world, and then accusing Turkey with accusations that are unheard of,
that is playing with fire. Striking down the trucks irresponsibly which can be in the
zone for humanitarian aid or commercial purposes, this is playing with fire…
While all these three outlets covered the same report, they have some nuanced differences: they took different phrases from this speech as their body of the report. Vatan did take that part of the statement made by Erdogan: ‘’I am sincerely warning him (Putin) for not to play with fire, we never stab anyone in their backs we fight chest to chest’’ but also used the main ‘’playing with fire’’ part. Yeni Akit also used the central part but also implemented the ‘’we are aware of your (Putin) trick of using that incident as an excuse to fortify your military presence in Syria’’ and ‘’ when this is over, they (Russia) will be a laughingstock’’ part of the report. Yeni Şafak also used both main parts, and ‘’we fight chest to chest’’ part and also pointed out the Erdogan’s speech of ‘’US Department of
Treasury revealed that Russian companies had relations with ISIS.’’
53
These reports were fortifying the narrative of ‘’Russia is continuing to implement imperialistic politics in their agenda and enables the construction of a frame that Russia is disregarding the international law to achieve their means, which is quite the same as how USSR was perceived by the Western world. All these newspapers were trying to portray Russia as a power that had to be held in check because they were trying to use military power to achieve their interests, which was reminiscent of why NATO was formed in the first place: to defend the Western world against the imminent Russian threat.
Figure 6: Reports of Yeni Şafak, Yeni Akit and Vatan about Erdogan's warning.
On following days, pro-government media mostly prepared their reports based on limitations of Russia made by Turkish citizens living in Russia and Erdogan’s call for negotiations to Putin. On September 29, 2015 edition of Yeni Akit reported the title of ‘’Russia is still in shock’’ and wrote that Russia lost prestige in the international arena and started to send Turkish students back to Turkey. On the same date, Güneş included Russia’s economic limitations to Turkish traders, reported Putin signing the economic tariffs against Turkey. Aksam reported the Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry’s warning of ‘’Do not travel to Russia besides emergent needs and problems’’.
54
While upcoming reports are not directly about the downing of the Russian plane and its effects, it is critical to add these reports since they are adding some insights to the construction of the ‘’Russia perception’’, and they are remotely tying themselves to the downing of Russian plane incident whatsoever. On December 08, 2015, Yeni Akit reported the bombardment of Russian jets against the opposing force on the region near
Aleppo. Reportedly, Russian jets bombed Sukuri, Hulok, and Firdevs region. That bombardment also involved a school. Yeni Akit reported the event with the title: ‘’Baby murderer Russia even hit the school: 14 casualties!’’.31 The importance of the title came from the fact of ‘’baby murderer’’ was being used in the media outlets in Turkey for
Abdullah Öcalan, the very first leader of the PKK. Briefly, Yeni Akit wanted to extend that title with Russia since the term ‘’baby murderer’’ has deeply rooted in the memory of the Turkish public. On November 30, 2015, Yeni Şafak reported that Russia started to help YPG/PYD -which is considered as a terrorist organization by the Republic of
Turkey- by air-dropping arms to a camp in Afrin, which is only 7 km away from Aleppo.
The report titled: ‘’Russia weapons to Syria’’.32 Sabah, on date December 3, 2015, reported the last president of the USSR; Mikhail Gorbachev’s reflections on the event.
According to Gorbachev, tensions between these two nations not only harm the relations between these states but also harm the European affairs of these two states both. The report was titled: ‘’Putin put into place by the last president of USSR’’. 33
To wrap up the initial responses from pro-government media, Russia stimulates two critical perceptions. First, Russia is an imperialistic power that dominating and forcing the states around it according to their interests with its military power.
Second, Russia is completely neglecting international law and killing off the civilians and even getting into unethical relations with ISIS to meet their goals. Before moving on to the next chapter, the reader should know that hard news covers are only based on the facts and events that occurred and it leaves little to none room for a journalist to form a frame.
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Therefore, it is nearly impossible to construct a narrative around the hard news because it follows basic ethics. On the other hand, commentary (opinion journalism or opinion piece) and investigative journalism leave much more space to a journalist for adding more information found out by himself. Commentary, by the nature of it, is about giving insights about an event or occurrence in the flow of life. However, it is also an inevitable fact that it does stretch the ethical limits of journalism. Investigative journalism, on the other hand, has to follow -at least to some extent- journalism ethics. However, the definition of ethics can be extended to some extent and can be morally justified. Kieran
(2013) is giving one of the best insights about ethics in investigative journalism:
…investigative journalism thereby justifies any means used to fulfil them or that
anything or everything is licensed by such considerations. Rather, what does follow
is that certain actions we normally think of as immoral can be, under certain strict
conditions, morally justified.
One of the examples of the moral justification in investigative journalism would be the coverage of Can Dündar, editor in chief of newspaper Cumhuriyet, about stopping of trucks of National Information Agency (MIT), which was full of weapons.
Can Dündar defends his coverage of the event with these words: ‘’If a journalist realizes that his country is at danger, it is his duty, his obligation to publish these reports’’.
Eventually, he and Ankara representative of the newspaper Erdem Gül were arrested by the state with the accusation of ‘’helping and supporting terrorism’’.
In the following chapter, we will examine the examples of investigative journalism and commentaries/columns prepared by the opinion leaders, who are close to the government. Intention for that is to see and examine what they found out and how they presented them; how they portray Russia as a country, and what historical elements they framed.
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4.1.3. Investigative News and Commentaries
On December 5, 2020, Sabah published an article with the title of
‘’Unbelievable detail in the background of the downing of the Russian plane.’’.34 The report was an example of investigative journalism mixed with a twist of commentary. It compiles the statements made by one of the Russian pilots saying: ‘’We were not warned, not even one time, we did not hear anything, if we had heard something we would have turned back immediately.’’ Furthermore, the report also incorporated a Dutch pilot in the area saying: ‘’We heard the emergency broadcast of Turkish Airforce and Russian pilot was warned many times but did not answer even once. ’’. After the incident, Russia immediately brought its S-400 air defence system in the area. According to Sabah, Russia sacrificed their pilots and jets to deploy the S-400 system in Syria, and they were well aware that Turkish pilots were going to engage the Russian jets in the area. The logic behind that, according to the Sabah, if there were no excuses, US, Israel, therefore NATO would strongly disagree with the idea of Russia deploying these missiles which have insanely long range. According to ‘’sources’’, as written in Sabah, Russian pilots did not make any attempts to break the target lock of Turkish F-16s with their SU-24 jets.
This piece portrays Russia as a reckless force that can sacrifice its own pilots to achieve even the smallest of strategical goals and also shows how far Russia can go to achieve its benefits. The piece ends with a self-explanatory sentence to impose this to the reader: ‘’Famous with their chess-like manoeuvres, Russia might have wanted to win the game of Syria by sacrificing a pawn. The rules of the Turkish side were obvious, maybe too obvious (that at the end Russia exposed them).’’.
On the date December 8, 2015, Yeni Şafak columnist Abdülkadir Selvi35 wrote an interesting article which is touching upon the historical aspects involving
NATO, Soviet Union, and alike.36 Titled as ‘’Was Russian jet a trap?’’, he started his
57 article with the process of Turkey seeking help from the NATO. He starts by mentioning a U-2 spy plane took off from Incirlik base37 which was downed in 1960 by the USSR while it was on a mission of gathering information on Soviet territory. He portrayed that
Turkey joined the NATO because of Nikita Khrushchev’s threat to the NATO: ‘’We have the power to bomb every European airstrip.’’. With the application to NATO, the US gave Turkey fifteen Jupiter missiles. However, when Süleyman Demirel came to power in 1965, he was trying to balance the power politics by not letting US’ model U-2 spy planes because they were ruining the relations between USSR and Turkey. Selvi argues that while the US protects Turkey, they were also trying to implement their policy to
Turkey and ‘’puncture a whole under the foundations that define Turkey’’ by staging a coup and forcing the new government to let the U-2 model spy planes fly again.
Selvi, with his own words, was ‘‘not trying to tie the downing of the Russian plane and this event together’’, but he was trying to find the underlying reason/reasons why the Russian plane was downed. He argues that the plane's communication systems and maps disrupted for the intention of receiving wrong signals or not to receive any signals at all. Because the pilots could not receive any signal, they could not be able to hear all the warnings made by the Turkish Air Force, and eventually, the Russian jets got shot down by Turkish jets. He portrays that this was planned by Russia and the US to isolate Turkey in the area to impair the Turkish presence in Syria.
Selvi also mentions in its piece that it was an ideal opportunity for Russians to deploy the S-400 system in the area, which was also mentioned in the piece published by Sabah on December 5, 2015. However, the importance of Selvi’s piece comes from the fact that Selvi included a fraction of the USSR, USA, and Turkey political triangle.
Selvi used the events that happened in near history and explained how power politics in this particular triangle has been formed in near history. He tried to explain how Turkey got stuck between the two of the largest militaries in the world back then. Then he 58 correlated the history with recent events; Turkey now is also stuck between the power politics of these two states. While asking the same questions as the report previously made by Sabah, Selvi incorporated the historical elements and drew some inspiration from history and he portrayed a Russia that applies the same policies as USSR. Selvi concluded that modern-day Russia more or less inherits these aggressive policies.
While not directly blaming Russia, Selvi was trying to argue that Russia and the U.S trying to force the hand of Turkey into military and political isolation in the
Middle East. He fortifies his argument by using Turkey’s joining process into NATO and the Cuban Missile Crisis and concludes that Russia and the U.S used this unfortunate event to increase their military presence in Syria.
Milliyet’s investigation team had found out a similar incident happened in
1976 when USSR downed a Turkish jet.38 The report titled: ‘’Russians had downed a
Turkish plane in 1976.’’. The report is about Soviets downing a Turkish RF-5A type reconnaissance jet with missiles. On date August 24, 1976, two jets took off from
Diyarbakır for navigation and reconnaicense mission, but due to malfunction error in the jet, the pilot could not navigate the border, and one of the jets got shot with four missiles, and the pilot ejected himself from the cockpit to save his life. Albeit, the timing of the report was thought-provoking since the real reason why Milliyet published such report was the fact that they wanted to tie that event to the downing of the Russian plane. As it was written in the report: ‘’Experts, while reminding the past of the USSR and Russia, puts forth this event as a reason why Russians were complaining too much about the downing of a SU-24 fighter jet, which was warned many times about violation of our airspace’’. This piece is important because it enhances the ‘’hostile Russia’’ perception by showing that this kind of events always happening between Russia and Turkey.
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Vatan columnist Murat Çelik in his column on December 02, 2015, wrote a piece about the situation of Turkish citizens in Russia, such as businessmen, students, and alike. He quoted a Duma39 member's Facebook post saying: ‘’They do not let Turkish citizens into Russia. They force them to wait for hours and then send them back. Tell me: did the Turkish students down the jet or Turkish constructors kill the pilot?’’ and blamed the government for returning to fascist practices with saying: ‘’Did our ancestors fought for this?’’. Çelik added a letter sent to him by one of his ‘’young’’ readers residing in
Russia while the event of plane downing happened.
The whole text is rather long to include in here but we can briefly summarize the context of it. After the plane was downed in Russia, the provocations started with
Russians gathering around the Turkish embassy, and treating Turkish citizens very harshly. He says he witnessed the police raided six companies and even if all the paperwork were on point, they still got into trouble with the state and workers were expelled by the Russian government. They were questioned by the police thoroughly and were asked questions like which books they read, what TV channels they are watching and which party they support and alike. He also adds that some Russian people helped them in these hard times, but most of the people suffered from lack of support because most Turkish companies were closed by the Russian government and their workers were sent back to Turkey. He also added that only a couple of big and established Turkish companies survived this witch hunt.
It seems this piece was written for the reason of showing the attitude of the
Russian government against Turkish people during the crisis. It shows how quickly the attitude of the Russian government against Turkish people changed when the tables have turned. Also, the attitude of the Russian government contributed to Russia’s anti-Turkish narrative created by Turkey’s pro-government media. The author created an image that
60 even Russian MPs are against these inhumane behaviours of Russia against Turkish citizens, and he supported his claims with the letter written by this ‘’young man’’.
This narrative of hostility against Turkish citizens continued throughout the crisis in the pro-government media outlets. Again, Vatan on March 3, 2016, reminded the hostility against the Turkish people. Initially, the report was published by the BBC
Turkish, but Vatan quoted BBC in the report and changed the original headline from ‘’
The 'compulsory residence' days of Turks in Moscow’’ to ‘’Turkish citizens are being punished’’.40 Written by Suat Taşpınar, this report is an investigative journalism example of the Russian government’s zero-tolerance policy against the Turkish citizens and business people after the plane downing incident happened. He wrote that Turkish citizens that have a business in Russia were facing some hardships returning to Russia and having problems on the airports in Moscow even if all their paperwork was correct.
He says that the applications were contradictory to the statements made by leaders such as ‘’Turkish people are our friends regardless of the political problems’’ and he writes that they are not travelling to Turkey with the fear of not being able to come back to
Russia. Taşpınar reflected on the whole situation and wrote that ‘’these are compulsory residence days for Turkish citizens’’. Although the report was taken from the BBC
Turkish, it is crucial because it shows that Vatan follows up the same narrative of Turkish people are being denied by the Russian government and having tough times in Russia.
While the relations between the Ottoman Empire and Russia were not employed to form an argument as much as expected, it was still mentioned occasionally in some of the articles and interviews in the crisis. One of the examples of this would be the journalist İsa Tatlıcan’s interview with historian and media figure Erhan Afyoncu, who currently holds the dean position at National Security University. The interview was published on the webpage of Sabah on January 17, 2016. The interview was mostly about the Turkic world, terror, and the Middle East but Tatlıcan, in a part of the interview, asked 61
Afyoncu this question: ‘’Turkey and Russia are historical inheritors of two great empires.
Tensions caused by the downing of the Russian plane continues in increasing fashion. Is there any historical background of this tension?’’. Anwer of the Afyoncu was as follows:
Turks and Russians have fought each other in the last 250 years of 350
years. At first, Turks had the upper hand, but with the rising population, emergence
and reforms of leaders like Peter the Great (Peter I) Russians had the advantage.
Russia had an essential role in the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.
(…) Russia, with the disintegration of the USSR, has lost its superpower
position. Russia, with the iron fist of Putin and rising oil prices, recovered herself.
However, in 2008 Russia returned to imperialistic politics by separating South
Ossetia from Georgia.
(…) Russia is not one of the two superpowers in the world anymore,
but as they are so obsessed in history; they are still acting like one. Downing of the
Russian plane made Putin weakened. He tries to ramp up the tensions with Turkey
to draw the attention to somewhere else from decreasing oil prices and internal
problems. Last but not least, this event also damaged the pride of Russians, who
known to have nationalistic spirits.
On previous days, Yeni Şafak journalist Mustafa Cambaz interviewed
Afyoncu on January 3, 2016. Afyoncu mostly pointed out the same argument, which can be seen as a mark of the seriousness of his argument. He also added how Russia is using the same tactics they used in history to obstruct the process of ‘’strategy planning’’ for
Turkey in the region. He mentioned that Russia is using the terrorist organizations of YPG and PKK, just like how they used Cossacks for their advantage back then. He argues that a state sometimes uses pawns to achieve their goals, and that relation can be beneficial for both parties. Then he argues that the Ottoman Empire is still being purged from the region as he believes that it is not easy to erase the legacy of an empire with a single
62 stroke of a pen. He then continues his argument with Iran being an ally for Russia is no different from their alliances with Europeans back in history, meaning, Russians had always sided with whoever benefits them the most. After that, he finalizes his thoughts by reflecting on the importance of the plane downing event.
These interviews show that pro-government media not only tries to construct a specific ‘’Russia’’ narrative covertly but they are also producing this narrative openly by tying this crisis with historical Russian-Turkish relations both with recent historical events and also with using the pre-modern Russian-Turkish relations to base an argument.
To make an argument that can be considered accurate Afyoncu is an ideal candidate since he is also a member of the historian trio in the program ‘’Backroom of History (Tarihin
Arka Odası)’’ with Celal Şengör and Murat Bardakçı. He is also a historian at the professor level with a particular interest in the Ottoman Empire.
On the date February 9, 2016, Milliyet columnist Nihat Ali Özcan wrote an article titled ‘’Russia, PKK and covert operations.’’.41 and continued with the subheading of ‘’The tension continues after the downing of the Russian plane that violated the border.’’. He argues that Russia uses PKK and Syrian regime to force Turkey into organizing a military operation to Syria, and wants to isolate Turkey in the area without any chance of getting the support of other countries and force Turkey to organize those military operations all by itself:
Russia will achieve its goal when it forces Turkey into a military
operation organized all by itself. Albeit, Russian Airforce should be calculating this
when driving thousands of refugees through the Turkish border. On the other hand,
they (Russia) think that they can force Turkey into a military operation when they
force the groups that are supported by Turkey to the brink of extinction.
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What Özcan did, was the combination of two narratives; firstly, he follows the
‘’Russia is setting a trap for Turkey’’ narrative, and secondly, he follows the ‘’ Russia is the supporter of the terrorist organizations’’ narrative. The latter of these two narratives was more dominant as he writes columns mostly on terrorism. This expertise in terrorism can be seen in particular at one of the last passages of the column: ‘’ Today the ones who handed weapons to children and wages a ’lumpen urban warfare’ do that to fulfil a bid, that is to keep Turkey busy in its internal affairs.
Yeni Şafak columnist Ersin Çelik reflected on the events in a way that ties the historical aspects of the Russia-Turkey relations with the repercussions planned by
Russia. Dated December 3, 2015, the article was titled ‘’ Chechens, Circassians and our memory of Russia.’’42. The article starts with a striking passage, implying that Russia is a country that challenges and designs the Western world and intimidates the countries with their army when they have to. He argues that Russia was trying to make Turkey cornered with the relocation of Armenians in 1915. According to Çelik, Turkey was a safe haven for people that were trying to run away from the pain inflicted by Russians throughout history. He continues to tell the story of Chechens and Circassians that escape from Russian tyranny:
(…) Muslim populations who driven away from their homes have sailed
through the sea and embarked to Ottoman cities of Trabzon, Samsun, Sinop İstanbul,
Varna, Burgaz, and Köstence docks. These destinations are located on Caucasia and
the Ottoman Empire (at that time). Almost every one of them has mass graves on
record. Exiled Circassians were around 1.5 million.
Chechnians that declared their independence in 1991 had encountered
atrocities worse than death through the process. 200.000 innocent civilians were
killed and 500.000 forced to migrate.
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…In 1996, Chechens got what they wanted and got their independence,
but Russia infringed the agreement and gathered its army three years later and
committed a greater slaughter and hit the hospitals, maternities, markets, settlements,
and refugee convoys.
He continues his argument with Russia’s desire to do the same in Syria, which, according to him, is forcing Turkey to take more refugees because of Russia.
Russia is forcing Syrians to abandon their homes, and, in the end, Turkey will be the safe haven for Syrian asylum seekers: ‘’History repeats itself and Turkey shouldered the burden (of refugees) again. Turkey paid the price of events that happened in Syria and opened its doors to the people who are running away from death, holocaust, and exile.’’.
The article is unusual in a way that how Çelik created a counter-narrative against the Armenian question. He used the Circassian and Chechnya questions to create a narrative that tries to convince the reader that throughout the last 200 years, Russia has always made Turkey carry the burden of the atrocities they committed indirectly because both the Ottoman Empire and Turkey had always helped the people in need. In other words, while Çelik was creating the narrative of Russia as a bringer of destruction, exalts the Turkish as a nation that helps the people that are in need, while instrumentalizing history to base his argument.
On the date December 7, 2015, Elvan Alkaya wrote a column on Yeni Şafak titled: ‘’History of Russia’s 22 years of PKK support.’’.43 She structured her article in a way that starting from 1993, she wrote how Russia supported terrorism in the coarse of
22 years up until 2015, whether it is direct or indirect. The article is rather a long one, but there are some highlights we can incorporate that are entirely in unison with the narrative created by pro-government media. For 1993, Russia stated that if Turkey supports
Chechnya, they will support PKK. Up until 2007, she mentions how, covertly, Russia supported PKK in mild ways and provided political asylum to the leader of PKK, 65
Abdullah Öcalan. For 2007, after that, she mentioned a report of General Staff of the
Republic of Turkey, which spotted the origins of firearms used by PKK. According to that report %71,6 of Kalashnikov rifles, %45.2 of Dragunov sniper rifles, %85 per cent of rockets, %72 per cent of hand grenades and %28 per cent of land mines are originated in Russia. For 2013, she mentioned that Putin said Russia is selling arms to Assad’s army.
She also mentions again that General Staff of the Republic of Turkey shared a new report in 2013 a considerable number of firearms used by PKK are made in Russia. She then mentions that Russia helps YPG with supplying them with weapons in Afrin, which is a town near Aleppo.
She concludes her article pointing out that the Syrian city of Tartus is the only hope of Russia to have a port on open seas, which is densely implemented on Turkish historiography. According to Green (1993), it is not only a narrative in Turkish historiography but it is also a historical myth internationally. Since they will not be able to use the port of Sevastopol in Crimea after 2017, Russia is using ISIS as an excuse to acquire that port on Syria. While this column is not directly about the plane downing incident, it is important because it is contributing ideally to the narrative of ‘’Russia as a supporter of terrorism’’ and complimenting perfectly to the columns and investigative pieces.
4.1.4. Overall Framing of Russia until the Normalization Period
One of the key aspects to mention is how ’hard news’ reports are related to investigative journalism and commentary pieces. Commentaries and investigative journalism pieces have found its roots from the hard news reports. Readers can be confused since by the nature of journalism, there has to be an event to write a column or conduct an investigation to write an investigative piece about that particular event.
However, in our case, hard news reports are laying the foundation for investigative
66 journalism examples and commentary pieces. While there were no reports about Russia air-dropping weapons to YPG on ‘’regular’’ media outlets, Elvan Alkaya, on her
December 7, 2015, article, used that report as a base of her column. Since Erdogan mentioned Assad as a practitioner of ‘’state terrorism’’, Nihat Ali Özcan wrote a column that goes parallel with that argument on February 9, 2016. In the end, this creates an ever- continuing spire of historical justification for the pro-government media. However, the main discourse and historiography mostly focused on the recent history which involved the last century of the Ottoman Empire and Cold War era. Journalists effectively instrumentalized the previous relations of the respective countries to create a certain narrative, which demonized Russia while effectively instrumentalizing the historical occurrences and relations to justify the ‘’demonizing’’ process. Turkey’s relations with its Western allies also used effectively to justify the righteousness of Turkey in the plane downing incident. Support of the NATO to Turkey perceived as an ‘’approval of rightfulness’’ by the AKP government and pro-government media did their coverages accordingly.
It can be said that commentaries and investigative journalism pieces are only elaborated on what ’hard news’ has already covered, which was entirely parallel with the political agenda of the government back then. If we look at which historical elements were used when framing a particular Russian image, we can spot two essential elements.
(1) Russia is a force in the region that never backs down when its state interests are on the line. State interests can lead Russia to support terrorism in other regions and can even lead Russia to harm the ethnic minorities in their region. (2) Russia is an unstable force that no state can genuinely rely on, and the calm period of Russia-Turkey relations was only a brief gap. Because of the state interests of Russia, these two sides have always had a conflict. Russians are the historical enemy of Turkey, and they will continue to be as one. As one can guess, these two elements are not very different from the ’hard news’
67 narratives. This fact shows that investigative journalism pieces and columns are the expanded and structured versions of hard news reports with a keen eye on how to construct a specific narrative and details.
To understand how the construction of Russia in the pro-government media changed, we have to understand how the normalization between Turkey and Russia became a reality. To do that, our next chapter will be dedicated to the normalization period of Russia-Turkey relations. We will first have a look at how the relations normalized, and then we will have a look at how Russia is portrayed in this normalization period.
4.2. Reconciliation Period
Tensions between Russia and Turkey rose so quickly that these two powers once had operations under semi co-ordinational level were nearly ceased all the relations because of these tensions. Just as how the tensions rose, they have calmed down relatively quick because of the pragmatic worries of both countries. In time, the sanctions imposed by these two powers against each other proved costly for both of these nations. While the economic relations between the two nations are asymmetrical in a way that Turkey has the lower hand in the trade relations, these two states still have a considerable amount of economic relationship. In 2015, exports of Turkey to Russia fell by %36,9 compared to the previous year. In 2016, only 700.000 tourists visited Russia while in the previous year the number was 4 million. Russia lost Turkey as a vital partner in the field of energy and importing machinery and agricultural products. Russia needs Turkey as a partner to cut its ties with Europe and Ukraine regarding the energy with pipeline projects in partnership with Turkey (Köstem, 2018). In May 2016, President Erdogan made a statement that gave a hint about the future of Russian-Turkish relations:
What makes me wonder is what Russia wants from us as a first step (to
normalization). We are a country that wants to improve our relations with Russia. It
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is thought-provoking that sacrificing Turkey because of the mistake of one pilot. We
have to make an effort to put our relations on a different (better) level with Russia.44
After seven months of sour relations, president Erdogan took a step to restore the relations to what it was before. Erdogan dispatched a message in 2016 because of the national day of the Russian Federation, which is on June 12, and said: ‘’I congratulate you (Vladimir Putin) and Russian people on the occasion of Russia’s national day. I hope relations between Turkey and Russia excels to the desired level.’’. At the time, this was the only contact between two powers at a presidential level after the plane downing incident. On the date of June 24, 2016, President Erdogan sent President Putin a letter that formally apologizes to the pilot's family: ‘’We never wanted to shoot down the
Russian jet intentionally. We share the pain of the family of the pilot that lost his life.’’.
Putin and Russia accepted this letter as a formal apology at the presidential level. Shortly after on July 26, 2016, Russian officials invited Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who is the foreign affairs minister of Turkey, to the meeting of Organization of the Black Sea Economic
Cooperation which was going to be organized at the Russian city of Sochi. The meeting of these two leaders was fruitful for both sides. Çavuşoğlu stated that: ‘’Ensuring ceasefire in Syria is a must’’. In contrast, Lavrov, who is the foreign affairs minister of
Russia, stated that they renewed agreements of counter-terrorism between the foreign ministers and specialised agencies of Russia and Turkey, which was suspended for the last seven months. The meeting of these foreign affairs ministers was the start of the reconciliation period between these two countries.
There were some sensible reasons for why this reconciliation happened swiftly and efficiently. One of the reasons was in the matter of Syria, the Western countries -especially the US- have never been perceived as an ally by the AKP government. The US never declared YPG/PYD as a terrorist organization while declared
PKK as one, but in the eyes of the AKP government, YPG is a branch of PKK that 69 operates in Syria.45 Russia was paving the way for the operation by withdrawing its ‘ primary division’ of the troops46 while the US was continually making statements about they would not let Turkey use military force in the region.47 The US even organized a joint patrolling at oil rigs in Syria with YPG. Over time, acts like that broke the trust of
Turkey to the US.48 Eventually, Turkey launched the operation and swept the ISIS from the Cerablus region and also dealt a significant blow to PYD/YPG.49
One of the changing moments between Turkey and Russia was the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016. The government hold the Gülen movement (FETÖ) responsible and started to chase down the members of the organization one by one. FETÖ marked as a terrorist organization in 2015, and the leader of the movement Fethullah Gülen has been listed in the red notice warrant in the list made by the Turkish police.50 Turkey had officially made a request to the US for the extradition of Gülen to Turkey but the US was reluctant to hand over Gülen to Turkey. This act was a turning point for Turkish foreign affairs because the US broke the trust of Turkey regarding two critical matters. First one was the support of the US to PYD/YPG and the obstructive statements of the US regarding the military operation that Turkey wanted to organize in the Syrian territory.
The second one was the reluctancy of the US about the extradition of Gülen to Turkey.
The broken trust of Turkey to the US was a turning point for both Middle East politics and Turkey-Russia relations.
In 2017, relations between Russia and Turkey rose to the co-operational level at the Astana Conference, which aimed to end the civil war in Syria entirely. In the Astana
Conference, Turkey, Russia, and Iran decided to act as guarantor countries in the Syrian
Civil War. According to the BBC, the verdict of the conference was the continuation of the ceasefire, which started on December 30, 2016, confirmation of the territorial integrity of Syria, co-operative hassle against ISIS and Al-Nusra, and the conclusion that the conflict in Syria will not stop by the application of military force. In the next sub-chapter, 70 we will investigate how Russia was perceived in the reconciliation period and how the pro-government media framed Russia in this new environment.
4.2.1. Internal Affairs, Reconciliation Period and Pro-Government Media
Pro-government media and government itself framed Russia aggressively and religiously as an enemy of Turkey, and a supporter of whomever Turkey was opposed to in the ’downing of the jet’ period. Due to that previous aggressive attitude and Russian opposition, pro-government media had to find new ways to bail-out the previous narrative and had to make the Turkish public believe that these countries have common interests.
As Hippocrates would put it, pro-government media was desperate and called for desperate measures. Shortly after the failed coup attempt, the government declared a state of emergency, which gave the government a free hand in internal affairs. High ranking military officers and state officials who were affiliated with FETÖ arrested one by one.
By 2019, Internal Affairs Minister Süleyman Soylu stated that 511.000 people were arrested because of the operations against FETÖ.51 Around 30.000 of them were in custody, and around 39.000 public servants were expelled from their work. Government and pro-government media started to tie previous events to FETÖ and question the involvement of FETÖ in these events. Eventually, the government also arrested the pilots that downed Russian aircraft. Again, pro-government media was parallel in this turn of events and started to follow the narrative of the pilots that downed the Russian plane was indeed part of the FETÖ organization.
Although, as we mentioned before, it is essential to remind the reader at this point about one of the critical events that could create turmoil in this reconciliation period: the assassination of Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov. After the assassination, Vladimir
Putin stated that the assassination of Karlov was an act of provocation. It is important to
71 mention that event at this point since pro-government media tied this unfortunate event to FETÖ organization and did meticulous investigative journalism examples out of it.
Albeit, most columnists and investigative journalists were reluctant to accept this ‘alliance with Russia’ narrative even if it was adopted by the government so quickly.
Columnists and investigative journalists mostly inclined to believe that Russia is not a trustworthy ally since it only chases what is beneficial for itself. However, some columnists were eager and quick to tie the incidents and the tensions between Turkey and
Russia to FETÖ organization. Turmoil in the political environment of Turkey provided the journalists and columnists with the ideal conditions.
4.2.2. Hard News of Reconciliation Period
Russia-Turkey relations got out of hand quickly because of the magnitude of the event itself. It was an event that can be perceived as casus belli for both sides. When one thinks about it thoroughly, it can be said that nations went all-out war for less than that. Because of the same reason, it was more open to being framed with a specific narrative by both government and pro-government media since the national security of
Turkey was at stake. While the reconciliation between the states was relatively quick, the reconciliation period, as the name suggests, was still a process. It took a while for these two states to get the relations back on track. Concordantly, the news itself was not portraying a specific image of Russia. Rather than that, they had little hints in them how the image of Russia changed through the realpolitik aspects such as the economy and strategic alliances.
Before proceeding into our first report, the reader should know that these reports will not have shaping elements of how Russia is perceived and how a particular image of Russia is created. Instead, we will focus on how the process of reconciliation has established in the eyes of pro-government media. The reason being, in this period,
72 this research yielded no ‘’hard news’’ piece that focused on the history. Historical discoursive elements are more prevalent in the columns and investigative journalism pieces in the reconciliation period. However, we still have to incorporate them to reveal how the relations between these two nations normalized.
Vatan, on June 28, 2016, reported the statements made by deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak with the title of ‘’An important statement for Turkish companies by Russia.’’ and it was initially reported by Ihlas Haber Ajansı (IHA).52 When the question of ‘’Can tour sales to Turkey would start, and restriction to Turkish construction companies would be lifted, after the normalization of relations with Turkey?’’ asked
Kozak, his answer was: ‘’Everything is possible.’’ This report intended to notify the
Turkish audience that economic relations are going to sit back on the track over time.
On October 10, 2016, Sabah reported that agricultural products finally started to be exported to Russia again with the title of ‘’ First trucks are set off to Russia.’’.53
They have pointed out that Russia is the biggest market of Turkish agricultural importers and this turn of events made both agricultural producers and exporters happy. They have finished their report by giving place to Putin’s statement of they are going to export fruits valued at 500 million $, which was approximately the trade volume of fruits before the plane downing crisis and also hinted that ban of vegetables such as cucumber and tomatoes will be lifted by the December (2016). Following the same vein on December
3, 2016, Milliyet reported that citrus fruit export to Russia has started again. Titled as
‘’From Silifke citrus export started’’.54 The report was self-explanatory since it was how the producers and exporters are relieved after Russia has lifted the ban against the citrus fruits.
Yeni Şafak on date June 16, 2020, made a report about how the government is planning to make the relations with Russia as it was before the plane downing incident.
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Written by Çetiner Çetin, it was titled as ‘’Normalization in 9 steps.’’. The report is about a nine-step plan created by the government aimed to bring up the relations to what it was before the plane downing incident as soon as possible. According to the report, two sides are sending warm messages to each other and signalling each other with a desire to make the relations better. After that, the report proceeds to the 9 step plan. Nine step plan of the government consist of (1) normalization until 1-15 August, (2) participation at a high level to events that are taken hold in Russia, (3) damage assessment, (4) communication process with the help of the media, (5) public diplomacy, (6) coordination, (7) establishment of a working group regarding the relations, (8) measurement of economic co-operation and (9) rejection of any intermediary country.
Most of these parameters are understandable with common sense, and they are also quite self-explanatory except for the parameter that involved public diplomacy.
In the ‘’fifth step’’ of the report, there is a specific phrase that can be a beacon for the future of the relations: ‘’friend and neighbouring country Russia.’’. The piece also has other historical elements to show governments normalization plans:
For improving the relations with the neighbour and friendly country
Russia, public diplomacy studies will be done. Two important points will be
emphasized: the downing of the Russian plane was the fault of the Russian pilot and
keeping the diplomacy channels open will eventually contribute to the improvement
of relations. The explanation will be made about how Turkey is standing with the
Russian people after the collapse of the USSR, and how kinship relations that rooted
in Turkey, carried the relations of these two peoples to the familial level. After the
disintegration of the USSR, the joint endeavours with Russia for improving the
economy of Turkic republics will be explained (to Russian public). Activities of the
Turkish cinema industry in Russia will be supported.
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The report shows that the government will exert their utmost effort to normalize relations with Russia and emphasize the fact that Turkish people and Russian people stood together side by side in any chance they got. They employed a narrative that the USSR period was only a brief gap for the friendly relations between these two nations. With seizing of the diplomatic opportunities, the relations between these nations will become what it was before the plane downing incident. What that means for pro- government media and Yeni Şafak is the fact that this narrative is the new coarse for the pro-government media: one event will not change the good relations between these two nations.
Yeni Şafak, with the same tendency as stated above, reported Erdoğan’s official visit to Moscow at the date August 9, 2016. The report came out the next day with the quoted title ‘’Erdogan’s Russia visit is making West anxious’’. It was about the very first visit of President Erdogan after the failed coup attempt. The report firstly mentions
Erdoğan’s statements about visa-free travel in Europe to French newspaper Le Monde:
‘’If visa exemption (to European Union countries) will not come into force, the refugee agreement55 will be cancelled.’’. According to Yeni Şafak, West finds the meeting of
Erdogan and Putin ‘’concerning’’ and since these two nations have ‘’deeply rooted relations’’, it is not a surprise that Erdogan makes his first visit to Russia after the failed coup attempt. Yeni Şafak adopts a narrative revolving around the renewed relations between Turkey and Russia; Turkey makes the West anxious in a way that Russia can be a new alternative for Turkey in the future. What makes this report important is the fact that this report is a manifestation of how pro-government media portraying Russia as an ally against the West.
The failed coup attempt was indeed a pivotal event in the reconciliation period. Vatan, in a story, which was reported one day after the coup, on July 16, 2016, gave place to thoughts of Russian political experts. According to the report, the Russian 75 plane could have been shot without confirmation by Erdogan. One of Russia’s Middle
East experts, Nadana Fridrihson, pointed out that, on an earlier date, Russian jet could be downed without Erdogan knowing about it. People that staged the coup, which was
Turkish Airforce and Turkish Gendarmerie, could indeed be the same ones who shot down the Russian jet on Erdogan’s back. South Caucasia expert Andrey Yepifantsev weighed into the conversation saying that ‘’pilot that downed the Russian plane could be one of the pilots that involved in the coup’’. Another Middle East expert said that the coup might have happened because of Erdogan turning his face to Russia rather than
Europe; he states that he acknowledges Erdogan as a ‘’great politician’’ and supports
Erdogan. He also emphasized that the coup was staged to demolish the Russia-Turkey relations. In this report, Vatan wants to tie the whole plane downing event with the FETO to gain political justification with using FETO as an instrument, which both government and pro-government media affiliated with them with U.S
Yeni Akit reported the visit of Alexandr Dugin, one of the most renowned
Russian political figures in Turkey.56 The report was titled as ‘’Russia: we reported the coup on 14th of July.’’ The report is about Alexandr Dugin’s statements about they knew from December 2015 that the Russian jet was not downed with the order of Erdogan. He added that he warned a significant amount of people on the 14th of July: ‘’There is a movement in the army.’’. He also stated that he was talking with Melih Gökçek, who was the former mayor of Ankara before the coup happened, and he was waiting in the plane when the coup was happening. According to the report, Dugin is a great friend of Turkey since he was the one that built the bridge of goodwill between Russia and Turkey in those hard times. Yeni Akit acknowledged him as a ‘’true hero’’. Again Yeni Akit tries to gain leverage with creating ‘‘unusual Russian political heroes’’ to make Russia as a true ally of Turkey.
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At the date, July 23, 2016, one of the most prominent pro-government media outlets; ATV’s news outlet A Haber wrote a report about the possibility of the Russian plane being shot by FETÖ organization. The title was ‘’Plane crisis occurred because of
FETÖ’’ and the report was about how some commanders in Turkish Airforce had planned the downing to make Turkey cornered in Syria.57 According to the report, when
Lieutenant General Abidin Ünal was asked about the Russian jets violating the border he said: ‘’Do not come to me with violation reports, come to me with we (had) shot it
(aircraft).’’. After that, the report mentions that major general Atilla Darendereli said:
‘’What you can understand from this new engagement rules is when the plane got its nose into our border, you (should) shoot it down.’’. Following that, the report argues; the orders are sent not only to commanders but also sent to the coops below them, which is against the military custom of the Turkish Army. That way, they made sure that every FETÖ agent knows about the plans. The report also mentions that shooting down a plane with the reason of border violation threat must be secured within the NATO rules of self- protection, meaning the definitions of ‘’threat’’ is defined by the NATO (shooting down a plane while it is in the air, hostile act, or intention such as locking up a jet or, moving towards state buildings.). However, in the recent occurrence, the jet was downed as soon as it violated the border (in 17 seconds). The report ends with a conclusion about how
Turkey got nothing beneficial after this incident and Maxim Shevchenko’s praising of
Erdogan and the Turkish nation.
Sabah reported the statements of Burhan Kuzu on their website. It was quite a short report but the statement made by Kuzu on Twitter was an anchor in a way that how AKP perceived this whole period and who was to blame in these events. Titled as
‘’Russian jet is downed by FETÖ with the US knowing about it’’ Kuzu’s tweet was:
‘’Russian jet was downed with the US knowing about it. Turkey noticed that and made
77 peace with Russia and from energy to defence (industry) a massive reconciliation was established after that.’’58
One of the critical events that happened in the reconciliation period affiliated with FETÖ was the Andrei Karlov assassination. After the assassination, foreign affairs minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said the secretary of state John Kerry that FETÖ was behind the assassination of Andrei Karlov and this fact was known by both Turkey and
Russia.59 Pro-government media was quick to adopt this narrative. Initially reported by the official news agency of Turkey, Anadolu Agency, A Haber at the date January 8,
2016, reported that one of the suspects who went to the same police academy with the assailant Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, Kadir Şamlı confessed that he had seen Altıntaş going into a house which owned by the Gulenist organization.60 In December 2016, Vatan reported a coverage which they had taken from newspaper Karar.61 The report was about the assailant was using the application called ByLock, which is a messaging application used by FETÖ to communicate through the internet, and he was constantly messaging with the people that have a red search warrant on their name.
Since the attitude of the government towards Russia has changed over time, hard news of the rapprochement period was subtle when framing a certain Russian image.
Hard news of the rapprochement period consisted of (1) how disrupted the economic relations became and how the economic relations have been stabilized throughout this period (2) how FETÖ was responsible for the ruining of the relations. However, pro- government media had quite an ambiguous approach to FETÖ when one compares it with how government media perceived FETÖ. The FETÖ itself had always been the enemy, but the organization was an enemy of two different kinds. To make the subject more clear,
Star on a date March 6, 2016, included Fethullah Gülen’s interview with a Russian newspaper. Report of the title was ‘’Leader of the FETÖ is on ’Moscof’s’ side: ’Turkey should not shoot down the Russian jet.’.’’. The report was about Gülen stating how the 78 downing of the Russian plane was a mistake. This report finds itself in three other pro- government media outlets: Yeni Şafak, Sabah, and Akşam. This means that pro- government media univocally accepted that narrative. However, if we look at the reports came out later, all the pro-government media outlets created a narrative that downing of the Russian jet was staged by the FETÖ to disrupt the relations with Russia. Either way,
FETÖ was the real enemy.
Although the relations became closer to what it was before the plane downing incident, pro-government media, as we mentioned above, adopted a narrative that focused on downing of the plane was planned and executed by FETÖ to harm the good relations between Russia and Turkey. Concisely, FETÖ was an enemy of two different kinds. In the beginning, FETÖ was the enemy because FETÖ was sided with Russia and they condemned Turkey for defending its borders by shooting down the Russian jet. Later
FETÖ was the enemy because they downed the Russian jet to make Turkey cornered in
Middle East politics. The FETÖ hand in downing of the Russian plane is well documented in the upcoming subchapter, in which, we will examine the commentaries and investigative journalism pieces to figure out how events -therefore the hard news- shaped the ways commentaries and investigative journalism pieces were written and how journalists and columnists were motivated by this turn of events.
4.2.3. Commentaries and Investigative Journalism Pieces
Even though this study aims to show how Russian perception of the Turkish nation altered through the reports, it is impossible to understand fully how a particular
Russian image is constructed without mentioning the surrounding events and reports that affiliated with this process. In other words, in this section, we will indeed examine the reports that have historical hints in them to see which parts of Russia-Turkey relations in the history implemented in the narrative of pro-government media. However, we will also
79 incorporate commentaries and investigative journalism pieces that reveal how the normalization period happened because of the tangible reasons, and how columnists incorporated the involvement FETÖ in this process.
Erhan Afyoncu wrote an article in Sabah on August 14, 2016, about how the first relations between Russian Turkish sides started with commerce. Titled as ‘’Turkish-
Russian friendship was started with commerce’’, Afyoncu starts his article by how first
Russian relations began in the history:
Russia is one of the countries that we had fought the most in history.
Our friendly relations with Russia started precisely 524 years ago when Ivan III, the
prince of Moscow who sent a letter to Bayezid II about granting his traders and
envoys free passage.
He then proceeds into how the conquest of Kefe by Mehmet II and him taking the Crimean Khanate under his patronage, which led Russians to make contact with the sultan Bayezid II who was the successor of Mehmed II. He then concludes his column by explaining that Russians back then were no match in the state protocol for the Ottoman
Empire, and they did some unbureaucratic acts that perceived rude by Ottoman statesmen.
That ’rudeness’ led Ottoman statesmen to request from Russian statesmen to make contact with the mayor of Kefe first, not with the sultan. Finally, he mentions that the
Ottoman bureaucracy did not like the way they hailed the sultan in the letter, so Ivan II had to change how he addresses the sultan in the next letter.
By the time this column was written, it was the time for the economic rapprochement period between Russia and Turkey, so the timing of the article was quite thought-provoking in a way that makes one question the ‘’pure historical interest’’ behind it. It is also vital in a way that it starts with the fighting history of Turkey and Russia but also mentions how the first relations based on economic facts.
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Yeni Şafak columnist Özlem Albayrak wrote an article titled ‘’Why Sochi process was necessary?’’ on the date November 28, 2017. She started her article stating that she is not necessarily leaning towards the rapprochement with Russia. She is not concerned because of political alignment with Russia will cut the Western ties of Turkey.
She is concerned because she perceives Russia as a state that cannot be trusted. According to her, one can easily notice the liability of Russia, when he/she looks into the history of the Ottoman Empire. She then points out that Turkey was left alone in the region by
Russia and the US. The National Intelligence Agency (MIT) trucks operation62 harmed the prestige of Turkey and coded Turkey as a country that supports terrorism in the region.
She then argues that once supporting the YPG under the table, now the US supports YPG directly by coding the organization as an ’ally against terrorism’. The US is supplying YPG with a significant amount of weapons and in equally significant variety while using the ’war against ISIS’ as an excuse. She argues that Turkey, with its 910 km border with Syria, is the only country that directly affected by every event that happened in Syria, but Turkey is now excluded from the plans for Syria. She adds that the political conditions in Syria always change, so Turkey’s allies have to adapt accordingly, such as
Assad at first was an ally of Erdogan but now he is an enemy, or, in that sense, Turkey should question its alliance with the US. She finalizes her argument by saying that the committee went to Sochi stated their sensitivity against YPG and PKK terrorism in the area. That means that Turkey got what it wanted, and Turkey had no other choice to co- operate with Russia and Iran if it wanted to be an essential factor in the region.
This column is one of the examples that show, even at the end of 2017, Russia is still not wholly perceived as an ally because of the deranged nature of Russian foreign politics and because of the depiction of Russia in the Turkish historiography. Albeit, she still acknowledges the fact that due to the interests of both states, they are acting as an ally and co-operating in the region because of political conjuncture demands it. 81
Another Yeni Şafak columnist Mehmet Acet is searching the answer for a question which he manifested in the title of his article: ‘’Will normalization with Russia estranges Turkey to the West?’’.63 Published on August 10, 2016, he sets the theme of the column by starting his article with explaining the origins of the Turkish saying, ‘’he who falls into the sea, hugs the (sea) serpent’’ which is simply the Turkish equivalent of
’desperate times call for desperate measures’. According to him, the source of the saying was Mahmud II wanting the help of Russia against the imminent threat of Muhammad
Ali of Egypt, who marched fast into the Anatolia. When he asked about why he sought the help of Russia, he simply replied: ‘’he who falls into sea hugs the serpent’’.
He then argues that making close ties with Russia is making the Western world nervous. Reporters were continually asking Erdogan: will the attempted coup harm the relations between the US and Turkey, or not? Russia was swift to show their support to the government after the coup attempt and stated that they were supporting Erdogan, while the US responded to coup attempt 45 days later with the statements made by John
Kerry. Then he concludes his article by arguing that fear of losing Turkey will eventually increase the value of Turkey from the Western perspective.
With incorporating the famous Turkish saying, Acet was aiming to argue that even if the situation of Turkey is not desperate as the situation of the Ottoman Empire back in the day, Russia still is an ally that Turkey should not trust entirely. Rapprochement with Russia was an act of desperation by the government. He also acknowledged that it was the right thing to do for the government since making the relations how it was before the plane downing incident was crucial and beneficial for Turkey to balance the power politics in Syria.
On date June 27, 2016, Sabah released an investigative journalism/commentary piece written by Taha Dağlı titled: ‘’Post plane crisis Turkey-
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Russia relations in 10 questions’’. In this piece, Dağlı indicated ten points to evaluate the crisis. The report itself is a thorough evaluation of the crisis from the start and rapprochement, but since this study is providing enough data about how the process was throughout the crisis, we are going to evaluate how Dağlı interpreted the process. He mentioned when Turkey proved that Russia violated the airspace of Turkey, Russia chose the way of misinforming the public with false information and accused Turkey of illegally trading petrol with ISIS when they were the ones making the oil trade with ISIS. Russia enacted an aggressive policy against Turkey by supporting PYD in Syria with supplying them weapons. Eventually, they let PYD open an agency in Russia, which made the US uncomfortable since they were harming the alliance against (Russia, US, and Turkey) terror acts of ISIS in the region. Eventually, he concludes by stating that the trade tariffs applied by Russia harmed itself dramatically since Turkey found other markets to sell their products.
This article was written in the earliest stage of the rapprochement. To be precise, it was the time when the first diplomatic connections had been established after the plane downing incident happened. However, Dağlı has a frame of mind that Russia had no other choice than accepting this rapprochement since their economy was
‘’crumbling’’ because of the tariffs they applied to Turkey. It seems like for Dağlı;
Turkey was showing grandeur regarding the normalization of the relations between
Russia and Turkey since Russia was on the wrong track all along the process.
Yeni Şafak released two critical articles in that period, which tried to shed light on how the relations how Russia and Turkey would be in the near future. First one was written by Salih Yılmaz, who is a professor at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, questioning the possibility of Russian and Turkish partnership in Eurasia. The second one was written by news centre of Yeni Şafak and was questioning the possibility of Turkey joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which is a direct tie to the question 83 asked by Erdoğan himself: ‘’Why not Turkey should become a member of Shanghai five
(SCO)?’’.
Professor Yılmaz starts his article by stating that in today's world,
Eurasianism is misconceived by the people. He argues that Euroasianism is mostly understood as Dugin’s version of Euroasianism. Dugin believed that Turkey and China are the historical enemies of Russia, and Turkey should be dismantled because he believes that Turkey will eventually wake the Turkic nations in the area up, and that will harm the national interests of Russia significantly. Although, according to Yılmaz, this is not the case in the modern world since the views of Dugin about Eurasianism are outdated and seen as a far-right nationalist opinion in Russia. The people who critique Dugin are mostly emphasizing on the concept of a common civilization in the region rather than ‘’Russia and its interests’’. In fact, even Dugin himself has updated his views about Turkey in the near future.
According to Yılmaz, with the leadership of Putin, Russia is now applying a more traditional way of Eurasianism which has been around since the early 20th century rather than the ‘’New Euroasianism’’. Yılmaz then, asserts that most of the member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union are Muslim countries. In modern times, Russia is applying the Euroasinism policy with the concept of ‘’Russian Sphere’’. According to the modern version of Eurasianism, the leader country is Russia and Russia is the name of the ‘’empire’’ that inherits the related geography. Russia sees itself as the inheritor of the empire built by Genghis Khan, and the greatest threat to Euroasianism is a possible defeat against the US. He then moves on to state that, there are serious discussions about the possibility of a ‘’Turkish-Slavic Union’’.
He finalizes his article by stating that Russia and Turkey could be the representatives of the Western and Eastern civilizations in the region, respectively. While
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Russia, the US, and China are actively struggling against each other to acquire the hegemony of the region, Turkey is not willing to participate in this region as a force. For the Turkish version of Euroasianism to be successful, Turkey should be communicating more with other Turkic nations, and Turkey has to co-operate with them. Newly normalized relations are opening up new possibilities for both countries since both nations are ready to unite and ready to form a plan to partner-up.
While this article being too optimistic about the newly grounded relations, it is important in a way that it shows how the pro-government media switched the general narrative. Previously, Russia, with its acts, eliminated every possibility of forming a union with Turkey, but after the relations normalized, the narrative changed so drastically, and the possibility of co-operation in the Euroasia with Russia emerged. Once, pro- government media was reporting how Russia was massacring the Turkic groups in Syria, but after the relations normalized, pro-government media was creating examples about
Turkey leading these Turkic groups together with Russia. This article was one of the prime examples of how the narrative of media changes, as the narrative of government itself changes.
Our upcoming examples will be about how columnists of pro-government media perceived the involvement of FETÖ in events that happened in late 2016 and early
2017 and how they framed the US throughout the process. The first column we will examine will be the column of Fahrettin Altun, who by the date this study is being written, is the head of Directorate of Communications of Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, trying the answer the question which he stated in the title of his column: ‘’Why Russian ambassador has been killed?’’. He starts his article by the assassination of Karlov which is an incident that shows the point where global politics came to. After the assassination, members of FETÖ were tweeting English tweets about how the assailant entered the hall
(the hall that Karlov was killed) with the fake police ID, shouting Islamist slogans and he 85 was a member of Al-Nusra. According to him, these tweets got the most significant support from the members of PKK. Furthermore, ‘’unfortunately’’ Dogan Media64 preferred to frame the assailant as ’a radical Islamist Turkish citizen’ without doing any background check, and they misinformed the public by claiming that the assailant has
’Nusra ties’. Altun then proceeds to explain the ’real reasons’ of the assassination. He argues that Karlov was assassinated to create the false image of ‘’Turkey is a supporter of Nusra’’ to mark Turkey as an ‘’enemy’’, and an ‘’open target’’. All of that happened because of the recent rapprochement between Russia and Turkey. Another reason for the assassination was the US’ desire of reckoning with Russia. To do that, US instrumentalized FETÖ in this assassination just like they instrumentalized them in the act of the coup. Altun finalizes his argument by stating that Turkey should never stop being a force in the region, regardless of what it will cost.
This article may not include any historical myths or constructions.
However, Altun’s article shows how the perception of enemy and ally of pro-government changed over the course of this particular period. According to him the U.S using FETÖ as an instrument to obstruct the ongoing ‘’positive relations’’ with Russia. That way the
U.S can corner Turkey in Middle East politics and isolate it in the area.
Following the same vein, Takvim columnist Ergün Diler reached to the approximately same answers while following a different path. Published on December
24, 2016, his article was titled ‘’Executions of NATO’’. He starts his article by reminding the same chain of events triggered by Muhammad Ali of Egypt, which eventually led
Mahmud II to seek help from Russia. He added that Russia anchored nine fleets on
Istanbul and eventually the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi signed between the Ottoman Empire and Russia. The treaty had an article stating that if Russia declares war to one of the
‘’Western’’ countries, Ottoman Empire is obliged to shut down the straits. According to
Diler, that made the tension rise, which peaked at the First World War and emphasized 86 that the stance of the Ottoman Empire in those circumstances was to serve as an equilibrant in European politics.
While most of the article was about how NATO was covertly assassinating strategically important people with the order of the established families such as
Rothschild, the part that concerns us is the parts he mentioned about Karlov's assassination. He opines that the assassination was not instigated by Central Investigation
Agency (CIA) since they did not leave any ‘’business cards’’ to show that it was a CIA work. Then he continues with reviewing the statements made by Ankara ambassador of
US, John Bass: ‘’Do not befriend Russia. We did not execute the assassination!’’. He then goes on to explain that the global capital wants unstable relations between Turkey and
Russia to improve their capital accumulations, and they are using NATO as an instrument to assassinate strategically important people to achieve their ends. Then he concludes his article by saying that the status quo in the world is changing and Turkey is finding a place for itself in it and eventually will be victorious.
While Altun’s column is about media perceptions, unfortunately, he does not seem to have any concrete evidence to prove his points since he did not incorporate any proofs to his claims in his column. However, the column of Altun is mostly focused on the discourse since he has a solid knowledge about communications but the part about
‘’US wanting a reckoning with Russia’’ is also quite ambitious and seemed to point out the changing policies in Middle East politics. The column of Diler is seemed to base its argument on the history but unfortunately, it has turned into a conspiracy theory in the upcoming parts of his column. Where these reports concurred is the point that they have created their version of the truth to define who should people perceive as an enemy.
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4.2.4. Overall Framing of Reconciliation Period
Reconciliation period between Russia and Turkey happened reasonably quickly when one considers the tension between these countries in the plane downing incident. Pro-government media also had to change its narrative accordingly since Russia and Turkey were not only closing on the diplomatic distance but they were also announcing that they were going to act together and became allies in the region since recent events in the Middle East forced these countries to do so. Pro-government media had to adapt to the changing environment by not only creating reports about this recently occurred sphere but they also had to clean up the old narrative. Pro-government media did it by creating a particular narrative that focused on two crucial aspects. (1) The anti-
Western narrative with (2) framing FETÖ as the instrument of the US.
Pro-government media took an interesting turn regarding the narrative. Once associated with Russia, the narrative of ‘’supporter of terrorist organizations’’ was attached to the US after the reconciliation between Russia and Turkey completed. Pro- government media applied this narrative to the US by accusing them of openly supporting the terrorist organizations in the region. However, Russia was supporting the AKP government by staying beside Turkey through the reconciliation period; therefore, pro- government media created scenarios that depicted Turkey and Russia as allies. The general narrative was the same all around; just the trajectory of the narrative changed.
Factors that Turkish people were sensitive were constant; pro-government media used them to define the ‘’new’’ enemy by changing the trajectory of the narrative. At times of crisis, Russia was framed as a state that supported the terrorist organizations in the region such as ISIS and YPG/PYD, in the reconciliation period, role of ‘’supporter of terrorist organizations’’ was carried on by the US. According to pro-government media, FETÖ supported Russia when the relations between Turkey and Russia were going downhill;
88 however, after the reconciliation, FETÖ instrumentalized by the US to harm improving relations between Turkey and Russia.
We can speak of two particular historical instrumentalizations in this period;
(1) examples and possibilities of co-operation with Russia and (2) the U.S being ambiguous in Middle East politics. In this period we can spot narratives like Russian support to the Ottoman Empire when Muhammad Ali of Egypt marched into the Asia
Minor or the possible co-operations in Central Asia or how the relations between Russia and Turkey started with commerce. Generally speaking the narrative towards Russia was positive, therefore mostly positive aspects were used towards Russia. On the other hand, the narrative against the U.S was mostly accusatory. The aforementioned ‘’war against terrorism in Turkey'', which is a sensitive spot of the Turkish nation, employed to point out the U.S as a ''supporter of terrorism’’. While the history of relations between the U.S and Turkey not employed to create a narrative, the U.S portrayed as a ‘’catalyst of ethnic insurgencies’’ which Turkey tries to prevent from the very beginning of its foundation.
To finalize this chapter, reports of reconciliation period mostly focused on the improvement of commercial relations between Russia and Turkey and the changing perceptions of alliance and antagonism. These changing paradigm forced the pro- government media to adapt quickly to these new circumstances by creating a narrative around YPG/PYD and FETO. One might ask that: why only the target of these framings changed but the contents of the framing stayed the same? The answer is relatively simple:
These were hot topics at that time, and they are always the constants in Turkey’s political agenda. FETO is a terrorist organization regardless of whom they are supporting or get supported by, and the same also applies to the YPG/PYD. Any affiliation with these two organizations for both government and the Turkish public means that the affiliated agent is the enemy of the Turkish state. Pro-government media used that ‘’sensitivity’’ to define the allies and the adversaries at that time. 89
In the following chapter, we will focus on how the relations between Russia and Turkey came to the point that Turkey’s buying strategically critical S-400 air defence systems from Russia since the US was reluctant to sell its Patriot system to Turkey. We will have a look at how the media portrayed the improving relations between Russia and
Turkey. Then, we will have a look at the initial ’hard news’ and how pro-government media reflected these newly found ground by examining the commentaries and investigative journalism pieces.
4.3. From Reconciliation to Alliance: Acquirement of S-400 System from Russia
In the previous chapters, we mentioned how Turkey decided to buy the S-400 systems from Russia because of two critical reasons. Firstly, Turkey wanted to defend itself from the ever-growing threat of the Assad regime, and secondly because of the distrust against the US in the region since they were quite hesitant to sell Turkey the much needed Patriot system. In that milieu, Turkey had signed the agreement that allowed
Turkey to acquire the S-400 missile system from Russia at the date December 27, 2017.
That agreement marked the start of a new era for Turkey-Russia relations.
Theoretically, this period can be well understood as an extension of the reconciliation period. However, the period started after the signing of the agreement, which took the relations to the strategical level. Both government and pro-government media drew a definitive line and framed the politics clearly that left no question about who is the enemy and who is the ally. Before the acquirement of S-400, the co-operation of Turkey and Russia in the region was only at the political level. After the acquirement of the system from Russia, relations became much more enmeshed. With this agreement,
Turkey unofficially declared that the disruption in the relations is done, and now it is the time to have an increased level of co-operation in the region. In that regard, this period
90 deserved a chapter for itself since it tangibly ended the plane downing crisis and started new dawn for Russia-Turkey relations.
Reports of this period mostly consisted of the reasons why Turkey is acquiring the S-400 system from Russia and responses from the triangle of US/NATO,
Russia, and answers of the AKP government to them. This period was not only about
Turkey acquiring a missile system from Russia but it was also about the exclusion of
Turkey from developing the F-35 war jet program. Eventually, these chain of events triggered the period that ultimately broke the trust of the government in their Western allies and made them much closer to Russia. Pro-government media has also made it clear that from now on, Turkey will recognize Russia as an ally, and they made it possible by framing the US as a state that cannot be trusted, especially in the regard of Middle East politics. That being said, problems regarding the usage and exploration of energy sources in the Levant zone located in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea became apparent in this period. With states like Syria, Israel, Turkey and Cyprus having a political voice in the region and involvement of Russia and US made the acquirement of S-400 from Russia have a whole another meaning in the Middle East politics, especially when one considers the situation of Cyprus’ -de facto separation of North and South Cyprus- creating even more turmoil in the region. Long story short, this part of the study will be quite eclectic since we will dive into relatively recent problems in the region by using reports as instruments.
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4.3.1. Hard News about ‘’Acquiring S-400 Systems’’ from Russia
While it can be understood from the title, this chapter will only cover the event of acquirement of the S-400 system itself. However, due to the nature and magnitude of the event itself, it is nearly impossible to mention only S-400 systems since the acquirement of the system from Russia concerns many countries in Middle East politics. In this chapter we will be mentioning the initial reports about the agreement of acquiring the missile system from Russia, then we will cover the political build-up up until the point of Turkey’s exclusion from the F-35 program. Then we will inquire how the pro-government media serviced the news about it to the Turkish public and which historical frames they have employed.
Yeni Şafak reported the signing of the agreement on date August 23, 2017, with the title of ‘’The S-400 Job is Done.’’.65 The news was about Russia’s official weapons export company Rosoboronexport’s chairman Alexandr Miheyev, who confirmed the agreement that allowed the S-400 system to be acquired by Turkey. One of the systems that will be bought from Russia will be placed on the west of the country for securing the country against Greek threat and one of them will be placed to the eastern region of the country against the threat of Syria and Iran. The report is also mentioning that buying the S-400 was decided when Erdogan visited Moscow in the same year in
March. They negotiated about S-400, and eventually, they decided that Turkey should buy S-400.
The report also mentions the details about the specifications of the system with a visual. The reports about signing the agreement of S-400 were more or less the same in the whole pro-government media. Takvim reported the agreement with the title
‘’S-400 signing between Russia and Turkey’’ on August 22, 2018. 66 Sabah reported the same news with the title of ‘’Russian authorities: agreement of S-400 has been made with
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Turkey.67’’ on the same date. However, it is crucial to state that this agreement about the acquirement of S-400 was at the official protocol level and it was not finalized.
Figure 7: S-400's specifications which created by Yeni Şafak On December 29, 2017, the official agreement was signed between Russia and Turkey regarding the S-400 missile system. Sabah reported the signing of the agreement in its physical version on the very next day with the title of ‘’S-400 agreement is signed.’’. According to report, Russians will be delivering the first system in March
2020, the payment will be made in Ruble, and 45% of the payment will be done in advance while Russia will credit the other %55. The total cost of the system will be 2.5 93 billion dollars. Akşam, on the same date as Sabah in its physical version, reported about the cost and the fact that four batteries of the system will be bought and the Turkish Armed
Forces -rather than NATO- will control the system. Milliyet reported the signing again on the same date in its physical version, emphasizing the cost of the system and technical specifications of it. An essential part of this report was that it included the fact that the system will be excluded from the air defence sphere of NATO and will be exclusive for
Turkey’s usage. Again, on the same date the newspaper Star, gave information about the amount of the system that will be acquired from Russia and emphasized that the purchase will be made with the credited loan in Ruble with its title ‘’Signing of the S-400s with the
Ruble loan is done.’’.
Late 2017 was the timespan that the US and therefore NATO were questioning the involvement of Turkey in the F-35 program if Turkey acquires the S-400 missile system from Russia since Russia is not in the NATO. That being said, Russia was storing weapons and even nuclear warheads on Kaliningrad Oblast (Holtom, 2002). So, the main problem for NATO regarding the S-400 was the fact that the S-400 system designed to shoot down the warplanes of NATO.
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Figure 8: Physical versions of the newspapers Sabah, Akşam, Milliyet and Star reporting the agreement of S-400
Yeni Şafak on November 19, 2017, released a report about the threats of the
US and NATO regarding the S-400. With the title of ‘’If F-35 will not arrive, Kürecik68 will turn into a balloon.’’. The report is about if NATO and the US do not deliver the jets on the planned date, Turkey could consider shutting down the radar base in Kürecik,
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Malatya. The report also mentions that the closing of this radar base will blind the US and its NATO allies, particularly Israel if an attack comes from Syria or Iran. Takvim, in a report they published about the technical specifications of the system on December 29,
2017, mentions that the S-400 system has the capability of shooting down every American weapon.69 Then the report uses the visuals created by Anadolu Agency to show how the
S-400 system works and how it can shoot down the stealth bombers, fighter jets and missiles of the US. They also have a very self-explanatory title: ‘’S-400 has the power to shoot down every American weapon’’. However, reports like that, emphasizing the S-
400’s capability of shooting down the units of the US are more evident in the reports that were released in 2019. That being said, 2018 was a relatively calm year for the foreign affairs of Turkey because it was the time for elections for Turkey, and the detailed reports were mostly about the internal affairs and political campaigns. The missile system topic was not discussed until a politician involved in foreign politics brought that topic to the surface.
One of the reports of Yeni Akid was about the participation of Mevlüt
Çavuşoğlu, who is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, in the NATO summit in
Brussels. The report was originally written by Yusuf Hatip from Anadolu Agency. Report of Yeni Akit titled: ‘’Flash statements by Çavuşoğlu: The first batteries…’’ and was written on July 11, 2018. 70 He answers the questions about the possibility of S-400 recognizing the NATO units as threats by stating that the concerns were understandable and stated: ‘’We (Turkey) also estimated that NATO would be concerned about how the system will recognize the units as threats, but Turkey stated its terms when buying the system.’’. He also explains Turkey was in the need of that system for a long time and stated that Russia came with the best offer. Then the report mentions that Çavuşoğlu’s answering the question of: ‘’Will Turkey is becoming distant to NATO?’’. He answers that Turkey bought the air defence system from Russia because of its NATO allies71
96 would not fulfil the need of Turkey in that area, but the NATO and its allies were always the first options. The report ends by Çavuşoğlu, stating NATO should keep track of the political events in the countries and conduct policies accordingly.
Another report was mentioning İbrahim Kalın, chief advisor of President
Erdogan, saying that Turkey will not back down about buying the S-400 systems from
Russia. The report was based on the interview of Kalın in Bloomberg and was about politics in the Middle East. When asked about the US’s desire to apply sanctions to
Turkey with F-35 if the S-400 systems arrive in Turkey, he replies: ‘’As a sovereign country, Turkey decides what defence system and technology system it buys and from where to buy it. These are the decisions of Turkey itself’.’’. Then he continues to state that one of the important aspects of the deal was the technology transfer. He explained that Turkey does not merely want to buy the system but also wants to acquire the technology and wants to produce this technology by itself and he also left an open door for Patriot missiles; if the appropriate terms could be met, the Patriot system can be an option for Turkey. He then goes on to argue about Turkey leaving NATO. According to him, those who wish Turkey to leave NATO are the ones that long for the ‘’old Turkey.’’.
While the report took nearly all the interview, the part about how the government perceived the US in that period was particularly important. In the upcoming stages of the interview, he stated that Turkey bought the systems, not because of the intention of being allies with Russia but the national interest of Turkey required the purchase of the system from Russia. Then he continues to state that engagement between
Russia and the US are fairly different:
Right now, the engagement between Russia and Turkey is fairly
different. They (US) spent billions of dollars on PYD and YPG. They gave them
trucks full of weapons and armed them. Which country gave that amount of weapon
to YPG and PYD? If we are to criticize something, first, we have to question how 97
can the US can give weapons to a terrorist organization, which is a Syrian branch of
an organization like PKK. That should be questioned first.
After the cloud of elections had been cleared out in Turkey, the arrival time of the S-400 system came close. 2019 was a fairly busy year for foreign affairs of Turkey.
It was the time that the friction with NATO and the US were becoming more and more evident. Eventually, some parts of the system started to arrive on July 12, 2019.72 Just five days after the first shipment, Turkey was excluded from the F-35 system. After that, relations between Turkey and the US became completely staggered. When Turkey was excluded from the program, both NATO and the US insisted that recent events did not change how NATO and the US perceived Turkey as an ally and their statements were made accordingly.
In December 2018, Takvim released a report that they acquired from their unknown source. Titled as ‘’S-400 rest from Turkey: We will not let them examine’’, the report was about a report of Bloomberg that Turkey proposed the US to examine the S-
400 defence system.73 According to the source that was not openly mentioned in the report, Çavuşoglu stated that Turkey is not going to let the US examine its S-400 and confirmed that the system is going to be used independently from the NATO system.
After five months, on May 16, 2019, Çavuşoğlu made a statement at one of his official visits about the S-400 system; the system will not be integrated into NATO. He argued that claims of the US regarding the S-400 system could be a threat to the F-35 jets are false since there are many active S-400 systems in countries which F-35 jets are actively used such as Syria, and Norway. If that claim was valid, S-400 could technically have caught up with the technology of F-35 by now. The report ends with Çavuşoğlu stating that everything is going as it supposed to be and there will be no delays or cancellation.
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Milliyet, on April 10, 2019, released an article based on Çavuşoğlu’s being a guest on the TV channel NTV. 74 On the program he joined, he reflected on the options of Turkey if the US decides to exclude Turkey from the F-35 and not to sell the Patriot system. He mentions that blocking the sale of F-35 systems to Turkey is an act that manifests ‘’US policies contradicting itself’’ since the newly enacted law, Countering
America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, was not mentioning the F-35 and Turkey had bought the S-400 way before the act itself was enacted. He emphasizes that Turkey wanted to produce this technology and states that Turkey also uses the NATO systems, so leaking any information regarding the F-35 to Russia is simply pointless: ‘’If you have any doubts in these regards, let us found a working group to look into those endeavours.’’.
He also mentions that if the US does not want to sell Patriots to Turkey, Turkey could order another S-400 batch from Russia. When he was asked about the future of F-35, he reminded that Russia also has jets like SU-34 and SU-57 and Turkey eventually will have to supply these requirements until it produces these by itself. Title of the report was
‘’Breaking news: S-400 statements by Çavuşoğlu.’’.
On May 5, 2019, Sabah reported the statements made by the Secretary-
General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg who was interviewed by Anadolu Agency - titled as:
‘’S-400 statement by Stoltenberg: Turkey’s national decision.’’. Stoltenberg emphasized that the most prominent message he is going to give in his Turkey visit is: ‘’Turkey is giving important contributions to NATO as well.’’. When asked about Turkey’s decision of buying the S-400 system, he replied: ‘’Military equipment supply is the national decision of the countries, and when carrying out operations and missions, the vital aspect of the allied armed forces is the ability of their equipment to work together.’’. The report ends by Vice President of Turkey stating that the decision regarding the S-400 was made after Turkey had signed an agreement and gave a promise.
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After the exclusion of Turkey from the F-35 program, the stance of NATO regarding Turkey was the same. NATO was still making statements about how Turkey was an important ally to NATO. Yeni Şafak released a report that was based on the report of Anadolu Agency on July 18, 2019, with the title ‘’General Secretary of NATO stated:
Will Turkey expelled from NATO?’’.75 Stoltenberg stated that Turkey is an integrated part of NATO’s air defence system and relations between Turkey and NATO go way beyond S-400 and F-35. He also adds that he is concerned since Turkey is not a part of the F-35 program anymore. According to him, NATO allies are dependent on each other one way or another. He states that, if NATO could not solve the discord that started with the S-400 system, they will try to minimize the effects of this discord on the alliance.
As we mentioned earlier July 17, 2019, was the date that Turkey was officially excluded from the F-35 program. On the previous day of the exclusion, Sabah released a report about the statements made by the Secretary of Defense candidate Mark Esper:
‘’Turkey is a long-lasting ally of NATO, but the buying of S-400 was a mistake and a disappointment.’’. The report also mentions that Esper reached out to the Defense
Minister of Turkey and told the minister: ‘’If I get elected, Turkey could either get F-35s or S-400s (Turkey has to choose one of them).’’.76
On July 17, 2019, Sabah released a report using the report of Anadolu Agency as a source. The title of the report was ‘’Breaking news: F-35 and Turkey statement by
White House.’’. After Trump’s recent ‘’we are delinquent’’ statement77, US governance declared that Turkey could not/will not be part of the F-35 program anymore because of the S-400 system: ‘’Our relations with our NATO allies are multi-layered and not solely dependent on the F-35s.’’. The reason for the exclusion of Turkey from the program was
S-400’s possible use by Russian intelligence to exploit the weaknesses of the F-35 jets.
The next day, Sabah released a report of the response to that decision by the US.78
Originally released by Anadolu Agency, report itself was the statements of Ministry of 100
Foreign Affairs of Turkey: ‘’This one-sided step is not in accord with the alliance spirit, and the decision does not have any a legitimate reason.’’ The report was titled ‘’Breaking news: Turkey’s reaction to US’ F-35 decision.’’.
On the contrary, one of the guiding aspects of the future of upcoming relations was the repeated offers of Russia for SU warplanes. On April 24, 2019, A Haber released a report about the Russian state military industry company reminding that Russia is ready to supply the needs of Turkey if Turkey wants to make contact with Russia regarding the
SU jets. The report was titled ‘’Warplane offer to Turkey from Russia’’ and was prepared initially by Anadolu Agency. After Turkey had been excluded from the F-35 program,
Russia repeated that offer. On the date July 18, 2019, Takvim released a report about the statements of Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yuriy Borisov. In the report, titled as
‘’Surprise warplane offer from Russia after the F-35 threat’’, Borisov states that there is a possibility of negotiations regarding the possible agreement which could make possible
Russian made warplanes to be delivered to Turkey. According to him, the purchase of S-
400 systems made an example of this possibility. The report also mentions Erdogan stating that Turkey could acquire Russian jets after the US threatens Turkey with exclusion from the F-35 program. The report ends by Trump's stating that Turkey is in a rough situation right now and also the current situation is ‘’unfair’’. The report also includes a video of TV channel A Haber’s report about this offer and specifications of
SU-57.
At November 19, 2019, A Haber published an article which was taken from
Hurriyet about Russia offering the jets again to Turkey. The title of the report was ‘’SU-
35 and SU-57 warplane offer from Russia to Turkey’’ and was about the head of
Rosoboronexport president Sergey Chemezov’s offer to Turkey. This time Chemezov declared that Russia is ready to both sell the jets to Turkey and also produce them jointly.79 101
On July 14, 2019, Yeni Şafak made a report about President Erdogan’s thoughts about the purchasing S-400 system from Russia. Title of the report was
‘’President Erdogan: S-400 agreement is the most important agreement in our history.’’.
Erdogan stated that the reasoning behind the acquirement of S-400 from Russia was completely based on the facts and these facts were the historical reasons why Turkey had to acquire this system from Russia:
Our geography has always been a centre of attention and entrance of
our ancestors to these lands did not happen easily. Being at someplace and genuinely
rule are entirely different things. We are continuously struggling since we came to
this land. Threats have always been present and will always be present as this
endeavour of making this land our homeland continues, which started with the
Sultanate of Rûm, Ottoman Empire and continued with the Republic of Turkey. Of
course, the attributes of these threats change due to the era, conditions, and alliance
relations.
For Centuries Ottoman Empire had to deal with threats sometimes from
the west, sometimes from the east, sometimes from the south, and sometimes from
the north. The fall of the Ottoman Empire happened accordingly, from threats that
came from every direction. The Republic of Turkey did not gain its independence
from small countries such as Greece, but it gained it by earned victories from the
great powers that stayed on the background. Our tests have never ended in the
republic era as well. Despite the political and military pacts we formed with the
Western alliance, yet we are again facing the most significant threats from the West.
These threats can be political, economic, cultural, in every sense…Even we have
been a frontal garrison for the Soviet threat in the Cold War era and it was not enough
to cover us from these threats. Greece and South Cyprus has been swung above our
heads like the Sword of Damocles.
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Erdogan then continues to list his arguments regarding the acquirement of the
S-400. Briefly, he mentions that Turkey will stand behind the decision has been made regarding the system and declared the policy of Turkey as ‘’We should stand proud but do not be stubborn.’’. He then finalizes his view by mentioning that NATO should be proud, not be against Turkey since Turkey got even more robust with these newly acquired systems, then mentions that they are prioritizing the will of their fellow countryman rather than the will and interests of the European countries.
This particular report is crucial for the fact that it is a manifestation of the
AKP governments changing policies towards Turkey’s Western allies. With this speech,
Erdogan made clear that the AKP government is not trusting their allies at the West. He justifies his distrust to the West with Turkish history starting with the very entrance of the Turks into the Asia Minor. Then he refers to the Turkish War of Independence to justify why Turkey should not trust its Western allies and why Turkey opted the buy S-
400 systems from Russia.
Also, in 2019, the oil exploration in the Levant zone was a full-on debate topic and that made tensions rise with Greece/EU. While it was not directly about the US or
Russia relations of Turkey, reports about exploration endeavours in the Levant zone have shown how Turkey perceives Russia in the region. Turkey sent two petroleum drilling ships in the zone to explore oil, and these ships were supported by the Turkish Naval
Forces. Events at that time showed that Turkey was willing to co-operate with Russia, which proved that another dichotomy with the Western world was happening at that time.
While the upcoming report is not about directly about the S-400 system or F-35, it shows that whom Turkey will perceive as an ally in the future.
Our final hard news piece is about the involvement of Russia and China in the oil exploration process in Russia. According to the report, when the minister of Energy
103 and Natural Resources Fatih Dönmez was asked about the involvement of Russia and
China in the region, he replied that Turkish Petroleum is in touch with some companies already, there can be some steps taken or joint projects can be developed. However, it is not right to declare the names right now, but Turkish Petroleum has some negotiations.
While the report itself not mentioning the ‘’concrete proof of involvement’’ in it, author
Mithat Yurdakul seems like he interpreted this interview as a ‘’green light’’. He also manifested that fact in the title of his article which was published at July 19, 2019:
‘’Breaking news: Green light to Russia and China in the Eastern Mediterranean.’’.
While the hard news aspects of this era were mentioning historical elements only occasionally, these reports showed that the transition of Turkey-Russian relations was finished at the end of 2019. AKP government was perceiving Russia not only as an actor which is politically more helpful to the government but also as a state that can be an ally to Turkey in that era. Ergo, Turkey, by acquiring the S-400 systems from Russia not only found an alternative in the region but also supplied the requirements of its self- defence. That being said, this period was the period that relations with the US were entirely wedged. First, the US became the ‘’supporter of terror’’ and also did not resolve
‘’the FETO question’’ and secondly did not supply the requirements of ''one of its closest ally which also is a part of the NATO’’. The trust of the government to NATO was also completely broken in that period. Pro-government media was again constructed a parallel narrative to the events that were triggered by the government. However, the reports were much milder than the previous reports that mentioned on this study, but the ‘’ mildness’’ was only on the ‘’hard news’’ chapter since the investigative journalism examples and columns had much more furious attitude against the US and NATO. As usual, after the hard news of the period, we will have a look at investigative reports and commentaries.
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4.3.2. Commentaries and Investigative Journalism Pieces
To be more precise with the timeline of our study, this chapter will follow a timeline that starts with the debates of buying the S-400 and it will end at the point of the aftermath of the exclusion of Turkey from the F-35 program. Our first report will be about one of the many reports in that regard; the process of Turkey’s opting to buy the S-
400 system. Sabah, on August 22, 2017, released an article titled ‘’S-400 agreement in
10 questions’’. The report was about the thoughts of Taha Dağlı about the process of the acquirement of the S-400 system.
The report is structured like a questionnaire with ten questions covering the process of acquiring S-400. According to Dağlı, S-400 system is an extension of the improving relations with Russia, and Turkey bought the system because it was both superior and cheaper. Dağlı argues that Turkey will not become dependent on Russia by any means by acquiring this system, Russia is the country that takes the risk by selling the system to Turkey and the US is against this process since the system will not be integrated into the NATO. The US is concerned because of losing the world's most prominent arms supplier position and also concerned because Turkey will also be able to produce this technology by itself. Finally, he concludes his ideas by stating that the US has no right to argue this process since they have been supporting the terrorist organizations all along. Besides, the Russian public also concerned because S-400 can also be dangerous against the Russian units in Syria. This article showed how the columnists of pro-government media perceived the acquirement of S-400. This article can also be seen as an ‘anchor point’ of the perception of the pro-government media.
On November 21, 2017, Yeni Şafak author Kıymet Sezer reflected on the future of the joint F-35 project and how SU-57 could be an alternative to the F-35 jet. He simply mentions that the F-35 project is too expensive for Turkey and SU-57 jets are
105 much cheaper and the US’s being reluctant about logistic management regarding the performance makes Turkey utterly dependent on the project. According to him, Turkey should consider acquiring the SU-57 jet from Russia or consider joining the multi- national projects to adequately supply the needs of its airforce and also should concentrate on the ‘’capability-based projects’’ like unmanned combat aerial vehicles. He also adds that Turkey could follow the model of South Korea to improve its military capabilities and to do so, Turkey can build a joint ‘’iron and steel’’ industry with China. Additionally, he also mentions that 11.5 billion $ is more than enough to produce a domestically produced fighter jet. The title of the report was ‘’F-35s are not necessary’’.
Merve Şebnem Oruç wrote an article about the possible consequences of the decision made by Turkey regarding the S-400 system. The report was published on Yeni
Şafak on November 2, 2017, and the title of it was: ‘’What will be the consequences of
S-400 decision of Turkey?’’. In the article, Oruç gives insights on the process of acquirement of the system and comes to the conclusion that this process will ‘’puncture a hole in the walls of NATO’’, and the upcoming repercussions will be on the international level. Oruç finalizes her point by reminding the statements of Minister of
Foreign Affairs of US, Yann Tillerson: ‘’List of the sanctions are delayed because sanctions can affect the countries that have an ongoing partnership with Russia’’ and saying that this reminds the accusations of US against Turkey about puncturing the embargo applied to Iran. She then concludes his article by saying time will tell that if US will dramatize the S-400 disagreement or not.
On, August 26, 2017, Nedret Ersanel evaluated the politics in the Middle East in the axis of Turkey, Russia, and Iran trio. According to him, recent events were not only strengthening the bond between Turkey and Russia but also creating a trio that has never been formed throughout history. His views are important in a way that how pro- government media tries to articulate Turkey with Russia. He clarifies his views by stating 106 that Turkey and Iran have a common problem which is caused by an independent corridor between Syria and Iraq. Eventually, this led Iran and Turkey to have common interests in the area. Ersanel argues that, when one adds the recent deal signed between Turkey and
Russia regarding the S-400 system to the equation and also remembers the fact that these three countries are the mediators in the Syrian Civil War, this trio can be a force to be reckoned. However, in the upcoming paragraphs, he also acknowledges that relations between these three states have always been unstable. He then emphasizes the West itself caused this new ‘’alliance’’, and the West has its ‘’special reasons’’ to do so. Ersanel finalizes his thoughts by stating that, the newly founded ground between Russia and
Turkey is the biggest fear of the US since it ruins all the plans of the US in the Middle
East.
Erhan Afyoncu arguably wrote one of the most self-explanatory articles about how the Middle East politics have evolved on January 21, 2018. 80 He starts his article by these words, precisely:
Events happening in Syria are causes rising tensions with the US, which
we acknowledged as a friend and an ally. On the contrary, we get great support from
Russia in this environment. Exactly 61 years ago, in 1957, there was a tension
between us (Turkey) and Syria. While Russia threatened us, the US declared that it
would support Turkey.
In his article, he provides exquisite historiography about how the rapprochement between USSR and Syria started. In 1956, USSR and Syria started to get closer. That meant the south of Turkey was becoming a Soviet state. Eventually, this encouraged Turkey to pile up a military stack to the Syrian border. Some small conflicts happened in the border but the Syrian Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that small conflicts like that could happen when countries share borders. After that, the Syrian
Foreign Affairs Minister made a memorandum and stated that the Turkish military stack 107 is threatening the peaceful environment of the Middle East. He also adds that Egypt supports Syria by sending troops, and the USSR is also supplying Syria with weapons.
Eventually, Turkey decided to organize military drills in its Syrian naval and ground borders. In 1957 October, Syria asserted that Turkey is violating the airspace of Syria and trying to provoke an incident in its border. That statement countered by Adnan Menderes,
Prime Minister of Turkey at that time, by stating that Syria is becoming the arms depot of the USSR. After this historiography, Afyoncu then concludes his article by when and how Syria got its independence. In 1918, when the Ottoman rule ended, Arabs had a short independence period. However, the independence of Syria was not recognized by France and England. In 1920, France invaded Syria and with the approval of the League of
Nations in 1922, Syria officially became a mandate of France in 1922. After the endeavours of Syria, it gained its independence on April 17, 1946, which is celebrated as the public holiday on Syria. The title of the article was ‘’We became friends with our adversaries, and became adversaries with friends’’.
This article can be seen as a declaration of how the narrative of pro- government media turned upside down. In the beginning, Russia was the ancient enemy of Turkey and supporter of terrorism. Now, Russia is the ally of Turkey while Turkey’s
80-year collaboration with the West is now on the brink of fallin apart
Milliyet columnist Güneri Civaoğlu on November 15, 2019, wrote a column about how national interests shape international politics. With the title of ‘’ ‘As well as’ age.’’, the column starts with Civaoğlu explaining Turkey’s standing with the Western world during the Cold War era that followed by World War II. On the other side, there was Russia and its orbital states, which Civaoğlu acknowledged as ‘’possible enemy’’.
This forced Turkey to pick a bloc. That being said, Civaoğlu argues that current international politics are much more demanding than picking a bloc. According to him, in the new era of international politics, Turkey does not have to pick a side since the 108 changing political dynamics lead Turkey to be partners with the US as well as with
Russia. According to Civaoğlu, these dynamics are defined by the geographical position and political benefits. Civaoğlu states that the current situation of international politics demands that Turkey should not only get the S-400 system but also should not give up on the Patriot system as well. Granting all this, he also adds that in the near future, Turkey could not get SU jets and F-35s together. According to him, the US is also following that rule by supporting both Turkey and PYD in the area while Russia also supports both
Turkey and PYD in the region but Russia's support is not as apparent as the US's.
Civaoğlu then concludes by stating only time will tell that will ‘’as well as’’ age be an exclusive luxury for these two great powers or will Turkey also start to apply this policy and become an example to other countries. According to Civaoğlu, War of Independence of Turkey which was led by Mustafa Kemal is a ‘’unique’’ difference of Turkey in the international arena, which should make ‘’us‘’ hopeful.
In this article, Civaoğlu tried to prove his points by convincing the reader about the requirements of the current political environment. According to him, the modern political environment requires getting the most out of the relations and one country does not have to pick one bloc or the other in the modern era of politics
Burhanettin Duran, in his article dated November 30, 2019, discussed how the new era of international politics is making NATO hesitant. Titled as ‘’Future of
NATO and Turkey’’, Duran starts his article by pointing out the problems in the world politics; China's buy-out of the infrastructure of Europe, the US contesting the liberal world order, the refugee and terrorism flood to Europe and increased appeal of populism is forcing the ‘’70-year alliance’’ to a strategical questioning. He argues that after the end of the Cold War, NATO still perceived Russia as a threat and started to expand through
Caucasia and old communist states. Over time, these expansions made Russia continue its hostility and eventually Russia retaliated against these expansions with Georgia and 109
Ukraine interventions. He continues by the annexation of Crimea made the Baltic states anxious. Russia was still supporting the right-wing, and leftwing populism both (in
Europe) but NATO was not univocal in regard of ‘’Which kind of threat Russia is and what to do with it?’’. Duran argues that Russia is not a real threat to NATO since it does not possess any advanced industries other than the energy and military industry.
According to him, the real threat is China, and the US wants to invest against the Chinese threat, while France and Germany want to see Russia as a partner rather than an enemy.
Duran concludes his article by stating that Turkey is perceived as an ‘’untrustworthy ally’’ because of buying the S-400 from Russia but he also adds that Turkey is also questioning
NATO since Turkey did not receive any help from NATO countries in the struggle against
YPG. However, NATO should do a reconsideration regarding the strategic missions, which also should include the military interests of Turkey since Turkey has a crucial geographical position for NATO.
What Duran did in this was to negate the influence of NATO in international politics to justify that NATO is obsolete in the current status-quo. Not only justifying
Turkey, he also justifies Russia by stating that Russia’s aggressive policies are the result of the isolation policies of the Western countries.
Professor Çağrı Erhan wrote a column about how the relations between the
US, Turkey, and Russia turned upside down. It was written on April 7, 2019, and the title of the column was ‘’From Jupiter missiles to S-400s’’. As one can guess from the title, the report used the Cuban Missile Crisis as a base to argue that international politics are much more different today than it once was. The US once deployed the Jupiter missiles to Turkey to intimidate the USSR and USSR did the same with deploying missiles to
Cuba. Today, the US is questioning the involvement of Turkey in NATO, at the same time Russia sends troops to Venezuela. While there are some similarities in these events, there are also crucial differences as well. Both countries were deploying their missiles 110 with the intention of bombing their adversary’s capitals; in other words, their targets were
Moscow and Washington. However, Turkey only acquired these systems for its own self- defence needs. Besides, at that time fear of losing the arms trade market was not one of the concerns of the US but right now one of the biggest fears for the US today is losing the superiority over the arms trade to Russia.
In this column, Erhan justifies the acquirement of S-400 with Turkey’s demand for supplying its self-defence requirements. He justifies his point by trying to prove that, Turkey does not acquire these systems for any kind of offensive. He uses the
Cuban Missile Crisis as an example to prove that Turkey’s acquirement of S-400 missile is nothing similar to the USSR’s deployment of nuclear missiles to Cuba or the U.S’s deployment of nuclear missiles to Turkey.
On May 6, 2019, Star's journalist Fadime Özkan did an interview with defence strategist and security expert Yusuf Alabarda. While it was a long article, only a small part of it was directly about the S-400 system. Alabarda started by giving historical insight into why Turkey needed this missile system in the first place. In the First Gulf
War, Turkey, acting with a Cold War reflex, was on the same side with the US and that made Turkey a target for SCUD missiles of Iraq. After the war had ended these questions were forgotten shortly after. However, the problem of SCUD missiles was on the question again when the Second Gulf War (Iraq War) started and NATO wanted to fill this gap by supporting Turkey but the idea of supporting Turkey was strongly opposed by Germany,
France, and Belgium. Eventually, Turkey held an auction regarding the air defence in
2010, and there were offers from French-Italian partnerships, China, the US, and Russia.
In that auction, China gave the best offer and that fact was shared with the public.
However, he also stated that the winner of the auction had never been declared but ‘’we
(experts)’’ knew that purchase was cancelled because of some kind of political pressure.
Other than that, the main focus of this interview was the broken trust of Turkey due to the 111 recent developments such as the US’s being reluctant to supply Turkey with what it needs.
To add that, the failed coup attempt and the vague future of the US-Turkey relations forced Turkey into supplying this urgent need from Russia, which was buying the system from Russia. He also adds that Turkey is not a mandate of any country, and these systems will protect the interests of Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean question. Alabarda, argued that the U.S is to blame for Turkey’s decision of acquiring the air defence system from Russia. According to him, reluctancy of the U.S regarding the sell aerial defence system to Turkey forced Turkey to supply this urgent requirement from Russia.
4.3.3. Overall Framing of the ‘’Acquirement’’ Era
This particular period was the period that Turkey’s perception of Russia and the US has completely changed. The conditions in the region made Turkey change its perspective in regard of which country is the adversary and which country is the ally.
Changing political environment made Turkey form relations at the level of an ‘’almost’’ strategic partnership with Russia. Relations between Russia and Turkey were on a level that the public almost forgot the ‘’downing of the jet’’ incident. Following up on the open support of Russian government to AKP government after the coup attempt was followed by the S-400 agreement and the SU jet offers from Russia made AKP government perceive Russia as an ally and pro-government media created a narrative accordingly.
However, this period was such a period that Turkey’s relations between the West and
NATO were on the brink of disengaging. AKP government questioned the ‘’alliance spirit of US’’ when they saw that the US supported the organizations that Turkey perceived as terrorist groups and was reluctant to hand over Fethullah Gülen to Turkey after the coup. After the acquirement of the S-400, exclusion of Turkey from the F-35 program was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This allowed the government to frame the politics of Turkey with the ‘’anti-US’’ agenda.
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Pro-government media outlets followed that narrative and wrote reports, columns, and investigative pieces accordingly. The historical narrative of this period was not exclusively ‘’pro-Russian’’ as one would expect, however, it was strikingly ‘’anti-
US’’. Pro-government media adopted a narrative that can be explained as ‘’Turkey has started to have good relations with Russia because historical allies of Turkey in the
Western world proved to be untrustworthy and disappointed Turkey’’. While on the other side of the medallion, there was a narrative of ‘’even if Russia was the historical enemy of Turkey, recent acts of Russia was constantly supportive of Turkey, and therefore
Turkey should stand beside with Russia''. To put it briefly, this period was the period that
AKP was questioning the concepts of ‘’adversary’’ and ‘’alliance’’ and reconsidering who is the ‘’ally’’ and who is the ‘’foe’’.
What pro-government media did when creating the pro-Russian narrative can be explained as a sort of conversion. Pro-government media utilized the broken trust of the AKP government towards Turkey’s Western allies as an affirmation agent to create a pro-Russian narrative. Meaning, media justified the acquirement of S-400 missiles from
Turkey by demonizing the U.S by framing the US disloyal and treacherous. Pro- government media justify the foreign policy actions of the AKP government by creating a counter-narrative revolving around the ‘’American imperialism’’. To simply put it, the
AKP government got closer to Russia and acquired the S-400 systems to protect Turkey from the evergrowing American imperialism in the Middle East and pro-government media created a narrative according to that.
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5. CONCLUSION
In this four-year period, the overall politics of the AKP government has changed drastically. The initial policy of the AKP government was to prove the rightfulness of Turkey in the international arena after the act of downing the Russian war jet. To do that, Turkey sought the support of its allies, Western countries, and NATO.
Eventually, Turkey summoned NATO to discuss this crisis. NATO supported and stood with Turkey in the crisis. Turkey never backed down in this process and insisted that the downing of the plane was the fault of the Russian pilot himself, and the jet had been shot down because it violated the Turkish airspace. News of pro-government media outlets about that incident was also parallel with the framing of the government. Reports of that particular period framed Russia as a ‘’historic enemy’’ which involved the Ottoman
Empire-Russian Empire relations and also involved the frictions between Turkey and
USSR. Reports also framed Russia as an active supporter of terror and partners with organizations such as ISIS. On the contrary, pro-government media outlets perceived the
NATO and the West as the allies that support Turkey throughout the incident and pictured
Turkey as “ the NATO country that shot down a Russian plane’’.
Second-quarter of 2016 was pivotal for the relations between these two states since both nations were facing economic repercussions as the tension increases between the states. With the messages of Erdoğan because of the national day of Russia, first political contact was made after the months. After that relations re-established when
Çavuşoğlu had been invited to Sochi by the Russian government. The failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016 was the turning point between the relations of Turkey and Russia since the Russian government supported the AKP government in this act. After the coup attempt, the reluctancy of US about the extradition of Gülen to Turkey, and the support of US to YPG/PYD in the region when Turkey was organizing Operation Euphrates
Shield completely broke the trust of Turkey to the US. After the re-establishment of 114 political relations, the commercial relations between Russia and Turkey were also re- established. Again, pro-government media shifted its narrative accordingly by emphasizing the support of Russia in the whole process and demonized the US and
Turkey’s Western allies. However, investigative journalists and columnists were still reluctant to accept Russia as an ally since they were still remembering the old ‘’haunting’’ memories of Russia and Turkey being adversaries. Nevertheless, they have acknowledged that the US is also an untrustworthy ally since the US is actively supporting terrorism in the area.
Following 2017, the broken trust of Turkey against West and friendly messages between Russia and Turkey encouraged Turkey to supply its defence needs from Russia. In the same year, the agreement regarding the acquirement of the S-400 system from Russia was made. Again in the same year, Turkey, Iran, and Russia decided to co-operate to end the war in Syria once and for all. That rapprochement between
Turkey and Russia made the rift between Turkey and the US even greater, and the US started to threaten Turkey with the exclusion from the F-35 program. Not long after the
S-400 batteries arrived in Turkey, Turkey was excluded from the F-35 program. All these events strengthened the relations between Russia and Turkey and caused the officials of
Turkey to question the ‘’alliance perception’’ of the West. Pro-government media utilized the historical narrative to portray Russia as ‘’the unusual ally’’ since Turkish and Russian people were mostly adversaries in the course of history. The narrative against the West was much harsher since the pro-government media used the ‘’new enemy and untrustworthy ally’’ narrative against the NATO and US. According to the pro- government media, what Turkey did for the Western world throughout the recent history was not enough for them to gain the trust of the US and NATO; therefore Turkey should re-consider the concepts of ‘’alliance and hostility’’.
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Consequently, we can separate these three periods, for that reason we can spot three media narratives in a quite specific manner. In the period of ‘’downing of the
Russian jet’’, pro-government media constructed a narrative about how Russian-Turkish relations have always been unstable since Russia, in this modern world, is not a country to trust in the first place. On the other hand, Turkey was perceiving West, and therefore
NATO as a valuable ally and willing to co-operate with NATO in the process of the incident. Secondly, there is a reconciliation period, in this period pro-government media was not completely convinced that relations between Turkey and Russia are now on a stable track however pro-government was not convinced that Russia is the new ally of
Turkey. However, they have started to accept the fact that Russia is now supporting
Turkey and therefore AKP government. At the same rate, the relations with the US, made pro-government media begin to portray the US as the protector of terrorists and supporters of terrorist groups. Finally, there is the period of which Turkey made the S-400 deal with
Russia. In this period, relations with Russia arose to a level from getting closer to the level of co-operation, meaning that the relations were on a level before the plane downing incident, if not better, and the narrative in the reports were also written accordingly with the relations: they were framing Russia as the new partner of Turkey. Also, the same pro- government media was portraying the US as an ally that is not even on the same page with Turkey while questioning the usefulness of NATO. Long story short, in the ‘’plane downing’’ period, Russia was the ‘’enemy’’ and West/NATO was the ‘’ally’’. Then in the reconciliation period, the narrative changed into positioning both US/NATO and
Russia into a ‘’questionable’’ form. Finally, the narrative regarding Russia was switched into the ‘’new ally’’ while the narrative covering the US was altered into the ‘’new adversary’’.
Our research revealed that the instrumentalization of history in the period between ‘’the downing of the Russian jet’’ and ‘’and the acquirement of the S-400’’ is
116 not limited to the history of Turkish-Russian relations. The history of relations between
Turkey and its Western allies is also utilized to form a narrative. The usage of the history between Turkey and its Western allies is especially visible in the ‘’acquirement of the S-
400’’ period. Pro-government media used the theme of ‘’American imperialism’’ to justify the reconciliation with Russia and acquirement of the S-400 system. Pro- government media used narratives about how relations with its Western allies were problematic from the very foundation of the Republic of Turkey and how these relations were harming Turkey throughout its history. In that sense, other than the ‘’anti-Russian’’ narrative when the Russian plane has been downed, we can also speak of an ‘’anti-US’’ narrative which also finds its roots from Turkey’s recent history. The ‘’anti-US’’ narrative has been effectively used by the pro-government media to create a sense of affirmation of AKP governments recent foreign policy decisions.
Period: Framing of the Pro-government media towards:
US/NATO Russia
Downing of the Jet Ally Adversary
Reconciliation Unreliable Ally Unreliable/New Ally
S-400 Adversary Ally
Table 2: Visualization of the framing towards US/NATO and Russia between 2015-2019 While history is a great instrument to form a specific narrative, it has its choke points. For example, the AKP government adopted a discourse that the downing of the
Russian plane was the fault of Russia since it violated the airspace of Turkey and Turkey had to shoot down that plane. Narrative of the pro-government media adopted that discourse accordingly and created news about how ‘’Russia has always been an enemy’’.
In the reconciliation period, AKP government acknowledged that this process harmed the interest of Turkey and the government adopted a policy to re-establish the relations and improve those relations to the level what it was before the plane downing incident. Pro-
117 government media outlets followed the narrative ‘’Turkish and Russian people have various types of relations in the history’’. However, the historical narrative was coming to its end at the point of the military co-operation since there were not many cases of military co-operation besides Soviet Russia sending weapons to support the cause of the
Turkish Grand National Assembly in the War of Independence of Turkey. Although history is offering tremendous opportunities when framing a narrative based on it, Russia and Turkey had no significant military co-operation indeed, but this time pro-government media used the times of hardship with Russia/USSR with the intention of creating a narrative to show that ''Turkey did not want to be allied with Russia but was forced into it''. Pro-government media framed a narrative that years of struggle against Soviet threat and always being a ‘’frontline’’ against it was not enough for the US/NATO. When US’s supporting of terrorist organizations and threats combined with its reluctancy in the regard of supplying Turkey what it needed, made Turkey question its alliance with the West, therefore, forced Turkey’s hand into opting to buy the S-400 system from Russia. In addition to this, Turkey was excluded from the F-35 program which made Turkey consider to buy the SU jets from Russia. As a result, pro-government media acknowledged that Russia was the new ally of Turkey.
Albeit, Turkey neither severed its ties with NATO and West altogether nor became a strategical partner with Russia in the Middle East politics. Despite all the events happened in both international and regional level, the status quo of the Middle East has remained mostly as what it was five years ago, and the politics of the region are still on the stalemate. Hegel (1861), reminds us that history is a concept that should be observed and take lessons from it. However, the zeitgeist of our current era’s politics is pragmatic and based on realism. Even if the aspects that based on the history of Turkey, which put forward by AKP government, hold any legitimacy, such as Turkey being surrounded with enemies, AKP government is still acting pragmatically and acquiring the necessary
118 weapons from Russia -a country that quite ‘’infamous’’ in the Turkish historiography- to evoke a sense of deterrence in the region. Looking from another perspective, Turkey took the risk of rupturing the relations with NATO and US because Turkey, as a sovereign country in the region, should not rely on the NATO and US alone because no one can know what could happen in the future. No country or institution can guarantee the safety of Turkey if someday the interests of these countries and institutions clash with the interests of Turkey.
AKP government and pro-government media instrumentalized the history to frame a narrative based on the realpolitik aspects of the region. That is why in 2015,
Russia was framed as an ‘’enemy’’, became a military partner of Turkey at the end of
2018, and, with Iran, these three countries became peace mediators in the Syrian Civil
War. AKP government is a right-wing populist party by nature. Hence, AKP is fueling most of the beliefs of the Turkish public that are affiliated with right-wing politics. As one would guess, there are certain types of ‘’historical enemies” in the official history of
Turkey which trigger certain feelings in some people. Meaning that the government had to cover-up for the relations against their narrative and the flexible nature of historical narrative allowed them to create that discourse. AKP government did what they believed the best for the interest of Turkey and made a deal which can be beneficial for their interests both in the international and in the internal affairs and they opted to buy the S-
400 system from Russia. With their usage of historical elements to frame a narrative that bails out the government in this sharp turn, pro-government media was completely parallel with the discourse of the government in the whole process.
Ultimately, the rationality and expertise of the masses regarding international politics are questionable since the majority of the people in any country do not have excessive knowledge or experience about politics or international relations.
Consequently, people are mostly using their votes on generally accepted knowledge or 119 according to their beliefs (Harari, 2018). AKP government as a right-wing party used these beliefs in the course of their time in power and was very successful with using the
‘’Turkish way of life’’ for gaining the support of the masses (Dinç, 2008). On the contrary, international politics is a field that pragmatic aspects are the main impelling force. One could notice that history, in this constantly changing and integrated world, is not the best parameter to form a government agenda. Turkey fought with Greece in the
War of Independence, but now both countries are NATO members, or the same can be also said for Germany and the US. These countries were enemies in the Second World
War, but now the altered environment allowed them to be allies under NATO. To return to our point, buying the S-400 from Russia -an ancient enemy of Turkey- was one of the worst decisions a right-wing populist party in Turkey could make since it was against the very foundations that AKP rose upon.
Nevertheless, AKP government opted to buy the system because ‘’Russia bided the best offer ‘’. Also, the AKP government insisted that they will use the system vigorously in the region. Pro-government media that once demonized the Russian acts started to demonize the acts of the US in the Middle East in this four-year process which shows that pragmatic aspects, therefore the realpolitik reasons were the key factors. AKP government, could not trust the US/NATO and also wanted to buy a system that effectively protects the interests of Turkey in the region. They believed the system would be the best for Turkey but that ‘’belief’’ came from the realpolitik facts, not from the
‘’historical reasons’’. History is used as an instrument in the occasions to frame a narrative whereas the trajectory of the pertinent ‘’historical narrative’’ is defined by the realpolitik. AKP government did buy the S-400 from Russia to protect its interests in the region. Pro-government media that once portrayed Russia as a historical enemy now portrayed Russia as an ‘’ally’’. In other words, usage of ‘’historical framing’’ is
120 ultimately defined by the real/realpolitik facts, history itself is not the parameter when making such decisions.
5.1. For Further Research
Starting from World War I up until our current era, Middle East politics has been unsteady and influences change now and then. For example, after the US troops retreated from Iraq, Iraq was, as one can guess, not in the best conditions both economically and military power-wise. Although recently, the government of Iraq wants to acquire the S-400 system after the assassination of the Iranian general Qasem
Soleimani by the US.81 Following the question of Idlib, which is one of the points that relations of the actors in the Middle East choked up. Attacks and bombings of the Syrian government against advancing Turkish troops and Russia’s attempts to enact a ‘’balance policy’’ between Syria and Turkey are making the relations in the Middle East quite complicated. In both Turkish people and Turkish media, people are questioning the involvement of Russia in these attacks.82
The ever-changing politics of the Middle East also changes the available framings for both government and pro-government media. It would be a great contribution to this study to delve into the increasing Russian influence through the
Middle East and how the pro-government media portrays -or could portray- this newly emerging combination of alliances in the region. It would also be interesting to add the newly aggressive policy of the US against Iran and how the new Russian and Iran rapprochement will alter the future of the region
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ENDNOTES
1 https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ekonomi/deniz-feneri-almanya-da-karardi-kanal-7- turkiye-de-daraldi-9933040 Accesed at: 31.08.2020 2 http://www.diken.com.tr/dogan-holding-resmen-duyurdu-dev-medya-grubu-916- milyon-dolara-demirorenin/ Accessed at: 31.08.2020 3 1677 – 1681, 1686 – 1699, 1711, 1712, 1713, 1736 – 1739, 1768 – 1774, 1787 – 1792, 1807 – 1812, 1828 – 1829, 1853 – 1855, 1877 – 1878, 1914 - 1918 (Dowling, 2014) 4 Truman Doctrine can be seen at this address: https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc_large_image.php?flash=false&doc=81 Accessed at: 01.03.2020 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUdr_UrN_Bo Accessed at: 02.03.2020 6 Agreement of bases regarding relations between Republic of Turkey and Federation of Russia 7 https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/dunya/gurcistandan-turkiyeye-nato-destegi-icin- tesekkur/1711683 Accesed at: 04.09.2020 8 https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/24/world/ethnic-battles-flaring-in-former-soviet- fringe.html Accessed at: 05.09.2020 9 https://www.ntv.com.tr/turkiye/rusya-ile-ticaret-hacmi-hedefi-100-milyar- dolar,ZiBxv7yglESLOsfBJ8Xekg Accessed at: 02.03.2020 10 https://www.mmo.org.tr/sites/default/files/gonderi_dosya_ekleri/180cffd6a8e829d_ek.p df Accessed at: 02.03.2020 11 https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2010/10/20101006-6.htm Accessed at: 02.03.2020 12 All the data regarding the types of commerce acquired from OEC for detailed information please visit: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/rus/ Accessed at: 02.03.2020 13 https://www.ihkib.org.tr/fp-icerik/ia/d/2019/10/18/rusya-2020-1-donem-ulke-raporu- compressed-201910181402470110-1F1D2.pdf Accessed at: 02.03.2020 14 https://www.mmo.org.tr/sites/default/files/gonderi_dosya_ekleri/180cffd6a8e829d_ek.p df Accessed at: 02.03.2020 15 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/world/europe/russia-ambassador-shot-ankara- turkey.html Accessed at: 02.03.2020 16 https://www.straitstimes.com/world/envoy-killing-aimed-at-russia-turkey-ties-syria- peace-efforts-russias-vladimir-putin Accessed at: 02.03.2020 17 https://turkey.mfa.gov.ua/tr/news/20181-trkiye-cumhuriyeti-ab-ve-natonun-krm- konusundaki-politikasn-desteklemektedir-ngilizce Accessed at: 02.03.2020 18 https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_92555.htm? Accesed at: 09.03.2019
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19 http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/incirlikten-iside-operasyon-basladi-343923 http://www.aljazeera.com.tr/haber/rus-ucaklari-isidi-bombaliyor https://www.ntv.com.tr/turkiye/tskdan-iside-hava- operasyonu,SumqTSTlsE6HYjQ6ME-XNw Accesd at: 09.03.2020 20 https://www.defensenews.com/home/2015/10/11/us-begins-removing-patriot- missiles-from-turkey/ Accessed at: 13.03.2020 21 Downing of Russian fighter jet is also part of this security narrative since Turkish side warned the Russian side multiple times before shooting down the jet. That can be interpreted as Turkish officials are not faltering from any actor when the security of borders is on the line. 22 http://archive.is/FwxLR#selection-3003.0-3003.16 Accessed at: 08.09.2019 23 http://www.mfa.gov.tr/disisleri-bakani-sayin-ahmet-davutoglu_nun-turk-konseyi- disisleri-bakanlari-konseyi_nde-yaptiklari-konusma_-22-agustos-2012_-bis.tr.mfa Accesed at: 21.03.2020 24 http://archive.is/Armib Accesed at: 18.11.2019 25 https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_138298.htm?selectedLocale=en Accessed at: 23.03.2020 26 Clickbait : articles, photographs, etc. on the internet that are intended to attract attention and encourage people to click on links to particular websites. (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/tr/s%C3%B6zl%C3%BCk/ingilizce/clickbait Acessed at: 28.03.2020) 27 https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/terrorism/module-1/key-issues/UN-designated- terrorist-groups.html Accesed at: 30.03.2020 28 In 24 September, 2015 Russian president Vladimir Putin made a statement about downing of Russian plane saying ‘’We got stabbed in our back’’ https://www.ntv.com.tr/dunya/putinden-dusurulen-ucakla-ilgili- aciklama,fvChtoWKCUeUR1ywwGWxaQ Accesed at:03.04.2020 29 Free Syrian Army 30 https://www.tccb.gov.tr/konusmalar/353/36157/bayburtta-toplu-acilis-toreninde- yaptiklari-konusma Accesed at: 04.04.2020 31 https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/bebek-katili-rusya-okulu-bile-vurdu-14-olu- 112077.html Accessed at: 19.04.2020 32 https://www.sabah.com.tr/dunya/2015/11/30/rusya-ypgye-silah-indirdi Accessed at: 19.04.2020 33 https://www.sabah.com.tr/dunya/2015/12/03/sovyetler-birliginin-son-liderinden- putine-turkiye-ayari Accessed at: 19.04.2020 34 http://archive.is/bdH3J Accessed at: 08.04.2020 35 By the date 08.03.2020 he is working for Hürriyet which he started his duty at 2016 36 http://archive.is/J0aIQ Accessed at: 08.04.2020 37 U.S airbase in Adana, Turkey. Still active by the date 09.04.2020 124
38 https://www.milliyet.com.tr/dunya/ruslar-1976da-turk-ucagini-dusurmustu-2160309 Accessed at:16.04.2020 39 State Duma is a lower house of Russian parliament 40 http://www.gazetevatan.com/-rusya-daki-turkler-cezalandiriliyor--924672-gundem/ Accesed at: 11.04.2020 https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler/2016/03/160315_moskova_turkler Accessed at: 11.04.2020 41 https://www.milliyet.com.tr/yazarlar/nihat-ali-ozcan/rusya-pkk-ve-ortulu-operasyon- 2191451 Accessed at 18.04.2020 42 https://www.yenisafak.com/yazarlar/ersincelik/cecenler-cerkesler-ve-rusya- hafizamiz-2023379 Accessed at: 21.06.2020 43 https://www.yenisafak.com/yazarlar/elvanalkaya/rusyanin-22-yillik-pkk-destek- tarihi-2023456 Accesed at: 17.07.2020 44 http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/video/erdogandan-rusyaya-yanit-bir-pilotun-hatasi- 543309 Accesed at: 26.04.2020 45 https://cutt.ly/cyoGXrA Accesed at: 25.04.2020 46 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-35806626/putin-russian-troops-to- withdraw-from-syria Accesed at:25.04.2020 47 https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-49248375 25.04.2020 48 https://www.ntv.com.tr/dunya/br-abd-askerleri-ypgden-ayrilan-grupla-devriye- gezdi,7owOEMxepEep-TphVsn3Zg Accessed at: 22.06.2020 49 https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/turkiye/firat-kalkani-harekati-nin-birinci-yil- donumu/892807 Accesed at: 17.07.2020 50 http://www.terorarananlar.pol.tr/tarananlar#kirmizi Acces at 25.04.2020 51 https://www.ntv.com.tr/turkiye/15-temmuz-sonrasi-511-bin-kisi-gozaltina- alindi,4KmhkDAxM0WzYOutgFfw7w Accessed at: 22.06.2020 52 http://www.gazetevatan.com/rusya-dan-turk-sirketleri-icin-cok-onemli-aciklama- 961546-dunya / Accessed at: 22.06.2020 53 https://www.sabah.com.tr/ekonomi/2016/10/14/rusyaya-ilk-tirlar-yola-cikti Accesed at: 27.04.2020 54 https://www.milliyet.com.tr/ekonomi/silifkeden-rusyaya-narenciye-ihracati-basladi- 2355412 Accesed at: 27.04.2020 55 Referring to the ‘’Readmission Agreement’’ between EU and Turkey. For more information please visit: Fort the agreement please visit: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A22014A0507%2801%29 Accesed at: 18.07.2020 56 https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/rusya-darbeyi-14-temmuzda-bildirdik- 218253.html Accesed at: 30.04.2020 57 https://www.ahaber.com.tr/gundem/2016/07/23/ucak-krizini-feto-cikardi Accesed at: 28.04.2020 125
58 https://www.sabah.com.tr/gundem/2016/10/13/rus-ucagini-abdnin-bilgisinde-feto- dusurdu Accessed at: 22.06.2020 59 https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/turkiye/disisleri-bakan-mevlut-cavusoglu-karlova-yonelik- saldirinin-arkasinda-feto-var/710793 Accesed at: 29.04.2020 60 https://www.ahaber.com.tr/gundem/2019/01/08/karlov-suikasti-davasinda-itiraf- mevlut-mert-altintasi-feto-evinde-gordum Accessed at: 30.04.2020 61 http://www.gazetevatan.com/mevlut-mert-altintas-in-bir-feto-baglantisi-daha-desifre- oldu-1020135-gundem/ Accesed at: 30.04.2020 62 She is trying to frame the stopping of MIT trucks as an operation that organized by the ones who wants to harm Turkey. 63 https://www.yenisafak.com/yazarlar/mehmetacet/rusya-ile-normallesme-turkiyeyi- batidan-uzaklastiracak-mi-2031051 Accesed at 03.05.2020 64 Referring to the media outlets owned by Dogan Holding which owns mainstreat brands such as Kanal D TV channel and Hürriyet newspaper. Company known by their slighlty dissident rhetoric against AKP up until Demirören Holding acquires Dogan Media Group. Now some of the outlets of Doğan media are adopting a ‘’slightly pro-government’’ narrative. 65 https://www.yenisafak.com/gundem/s-400-isi-tamam-2783972 Accesed at: 10.03.2020 66 https://www.takvim.com.tr/ekonomi/2017/08/22/rusya-ile-turkiye-arasinda-s-400- imzasi Accesed at: 13.05.2020 67 https://www.sabah.com.tr/dunya/2017/08/22/rus-basini-turkiye-ile-s-400-anlasmasi- imzalandi Accesed at: 13.05.2020 68 Kürecik literally means little sphere in Turkey and also name of a township in the Turkish city of Malatya writer Kürecik in both meanings to implement a wordplay in the title 69 https://www.takvim.com.tr/guncel/2017/12/29/s-400-tum-amerikan-silahlarini- vurabilecek-gucte Accessed at: 23.06.2020 70 https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/cavusoglundan-flas-s-400-aciklamasi-ilk- bataryalar-491345.html Accesed at: 13.05.2020 71 He is mentioning that Turkey wanted to buy the Patriot system from US but US was reluctant to sell the system: https://www.trthaber.com/haber/dunya/trump-turkiye- patriot-almak-istedi-ama-abd-satmadi-durum-adil-degil-423408.html Accesed at: 02.01.2020 72 https://www.yenisafak.com/gundem/s-400lerin-sevkiyati-basladi-ilk-parcalar- ankarada-3498205 Accessed at 16.05.2020 73 https://www.takvim.com.tr/guncel/2018/12/27/turkiyeden-s-400-resti- inceletmeyecegiz Accessed at: 23.06.2020 74 https://www.milliyet.com.tr/dunya/son-dakika-cavusoglundan-s-400-cikisi-2856178 Accesed at: 10.09.2019
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75 https://www.yenisafak.com/dunya/natodan-son-dakika-turkiye-aciklamasi-turkiye-s- 400lerden-cok-daha-fazlasi--turkiye-natodan-cikartilacak-mi-3498905 Accessed at: 23.06.2020 76 https://www.sabah.com.tr/dunya/2019/07/16/abd-savunma-bakan-adayindan-s-400- aciklamasi-hayal-kirikligina-ugramis Accesed at: 15.04.2020 77 Author of the report is referring to statemnts made by President Trump on the dat July 16, 2020. According to the report Turkey tried to buy Patriot system in Obama’s term but the Obama governemnt were reluctant to sell the system to Turkey. https://www.trthaber.com/haber/dunya/trump-turkiye-patriot-almak-istedi-ama-abd- satmadi-durum-adil-degil-423408.html Accesed at: 15.05.2020 78 https://www.sabah.com.tr/gundem/2019/07/17/turkiyeden-abdnin-f-35-kararina-tepki Accesed at: 18.05.2020 79 https://www.ahaber.com.tr/ekonomi/2019/11/19/rusyadan-turkiyeye-su-35-ve-su-57- savas-ucagi-teklifi Accesed at 19.05.2020 80 https://www.sabah.com.tr/yazarlar/erhan-afyoncu/2018/01/21/dostumuzla-rakip- rakibimizle-dost-olduk Accesed at: 22.05.2020 81 https://www.yenisafak.com/dunya/iraktan-beklenmedik-hamle-s-400-almanin- yollarini-arastiriyorlar-3521561 Accesed at: 08.06.2020 82 https://www.yenisafak.com/gundem/bu-eylem-savas-sebebidir-rusya-ve-esed- askerlerimize-boyle-saldirdi-3527559 Accesed at: 08.06.2020
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ABSTRACT
Turkey and Russia have relations that deeply rooted in history and these relations had many forms. These relations allow media outlets to frame certain narratives. Although these frames do not come out randomly and have a certain trajectory. Russia and Turkey were mostly on the opposing camps throughout history. For that reason, Russia perceived as an enemy by the Turkish public. That being said, at some points in history, Russia and
Turkey were supporting each other in history. AKP government occasionally employed the fragments of the history of Russian-Turkish relations to justify their foreign policy goals. Pro-government media not only followed the narrative defined by the AKP government but also elaborated on it by adding new dimensions to it. The period between downing of the Russian plane and short aftermath of the acquirement of S-400 involved both friendly and adversary narratives. In this study, we looked upon how and when these narratives come out and how the different parts of Russian-Turkish history utilized to create different narratives on different occasions. To do that we examined the reports, investigative journalism examples, and columns of pro-government media outlets.
Results showed that as the perception of AKP government towards Russia changed from an adversary to the ally so did the pro-government media outlet’s perception of Russia.
To add another dimension to that, AKP government started to question the ‘’meaning of alliance’’ with the West and started the perceive US/NATO as an adversary and pro- government media started to frame US/NATO as an adversary regardless of good relations lasted more than 75 years. It ultimately proved that history and media are not a parameter for designing international politics by themselves, but they are an instrument to form a certain frame. In the end, the trajectory of the appropriate historical element and the discourse is ultimately defined by contemporary realpolitik.
Keywords: Russian-Turkish relations, history, realpolitik, the downing of the
Russian jet, journalism 133
ÖZET
Türkiye ve Rusya tarih boyunca derin ilişkilere sahip olmuştur ve bu ilişkilerin birçok formu vardır. Bu ilişkiler medya kuruluşlarına belli anlatılar oluşturmak için fırsat oluşturur. Ancak bu anlatılar rastgele değildir ve belirli bir rotası vardır. Türkiye ve Rusya tarih boyunca genelde farklı kamplarda bulunmuşlardır ve bu sebeple Rusya Türk halkı tarafından düşman olarak algılanır. Bununla beraber bazı durumlarda Rusya ve Türkiye birbirlerini desteklemişlerdir. Bu tarihi ilişkiler AKP tarafından dış politikada hedeflerini haklı çıkarmak adına anlatı oluşturmak için kullanılmakta ve bu anlatılar hükümet yanlısı medya tarafından da yinelenmekte ve ayrıca çeşitlendirilmektedir. Rus uçağının düşürülmesi ve Rusya’dan S-400 temin edilmesi arasında geçen süreç hem iş birliği hem de hasım anlatıları içermektedir. Bu çalışmada hangi çerçevenin nasıl ve ne zaman kullanıldığını ve hangi ‘’tarihsel’’ parçanın hangi görünüşte kullanıldığını inceledik. Bu amaçla AKP hükümetini destekleyen medya organlarının haberlerini, araştırmacı gazetecilik örneklerini ve köşe yazılarını inceledik. Sonuçlar gösterdi ki, AKP hükümetinin Rusya algısı hasımdan müttefike evirilmiş buna uygun olarak hükümet yanlısı medyanın algısı da bu değişimi takip etmiş. Bu duruma bir boyut daha eklemek adına, AKP hükümeti Batı ile ittifakının anlamını sorgulamaya başlamış ve
NATO/ABD’ni hasım olarak algılamış, buna uygun olarak hükümet yanlısı medya ise 75 yıldan fazla süren iyi ilişkilere karşın NATO/ABD’ni hasım olarak algılamaya ve ona göre çerçeve oluşturmaya başlamış. Son tahlilde bu durum tarihi ilişkilerin ve medyanın uluslararası politika oluşturmada parametre olmadığını ancak çerçeve oluşturmak adına bir araç olduğunu göstermektedir. Nihayetinde hangi tarihi öğenin ve çerçevelemenin kullanacağını çağdaş realpolitik ögeler belirler.
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