Ukraine’s lackluster relations with Black Sea neighbor Turkey gained no shine from a one-day visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Kyiv on Oct. 9, with the Turkish leader even appearing to nod off during a stultifying press conference at the close of his trip.
Neither Erdoğan nor his Ukrainian host, President Petro Poroshenko, had any great breakthrough to report after their three hours of talks, even though their meeting had originally been scheduled to last only 45 minutes.
Poroshenko said he was satisfied with the meeting, but Erdoğan yawned and appeared almost to fall asleep as Poroshenko addressed journalists after the talks.
Both leaders gave lengthy speeches punctuated with formal exchanges of courtesies, hopes and pledges to strengthen the friendship and cooperation between the two nations.
Poroshenko said he hoped for support from Ukraine’s partners, and Turkey in particular, for Ukraine’s resolution on the United Nations peacekeeping mission to the Donbas, which it recently submitted to the UN Security Council.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has trouble staying awake during his press conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko after a three-hour meeting between the two leaders in Kyiv on Oct. 9.
However, Turkey hasn’t been elected to the United Nations Security Council for years. Ankara has in recent months been growing closer to Russia, Ukraine’s enemy, and drawing away from Ukraine’s allies – the United States and the European Union, whose nations form the core of the NATO military alliance to which Turkey belongs.
Instead, Erdoğan underscored the importance of security in the Black Sea region. Yet while saying Turkey would not recognize Russia’s 2014 illegal seizure of Crimea, and would continue to support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said nothing about Turkey imposing any sanctions on Russia in response to the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine.
The Turkish leader did, however, say he hoped for Ukraine’s help in his fight against FETÖ, the movement of Turkish Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen.
Gülen, who lives in exile in the United States, is wanted for allegedly plotting the failed July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey and has been declared a terrorist by the Turkish government. Turkey has pressured foreign governments to close Gülen-funded schools, investigate FETÖ ties, and extradite alleged members of the organization, but their presence has never been fully confirmed in Ukraine.
The two leaders set the goal of more than double trade between their two countries, to $10 billion, although negotaitons over a free trade agreement have dragged on for years. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Turkey’s trade with Ukraine was worth $3.8 billion in 2016.
The presidents signed agreements on protection of investment, double taxation avoidance, and diplomatic training. Turkish and Ukrainian companies signed contracts in the defense sector, Poroshenko said. Erdoğan announced the opening of a Kyiv branch of the Yunus Emre Institute, the Turkish state-funded agency that promotes Turkish language and culture abroad.
The humdrum meeting of the Turkish and Ukrainian leaders contrasted sharply with Erdoğan’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin two weeks earlier in Ankara. Putin and Erdogan have already met five times this year.
Turkish-Russian relations are developing dynamically, with cooperation between them in energy, military and defense — with trade all on the up.
In the energy sphere, construction of the TurkStream gas pipeline is powering ahead. The new pipeline will deliver Russian gas across the Black Sea through Turkey and Central Europe to Austria. Meanwhile, a subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, is to build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, the Akkuyu Nuclear Energy Plant, in Mersin Province, in southern Turkey. Construction of the plant is due to begin next year.
Furthermore, Ankara in September announced it would purchase S-400 anti-aircraft missiles from Russia. And finally, if anyone still had had doubts about the thaw in Turkish- Russian relations, Moscow decided to lift the embargo on the imports of Turkish tomatoes starting from October.
Russia imposed the embargo after Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet on the Turkish-Syrian border in November 2015. In retaliation, the Kremlin imposed a number of economic sanctions on Turkish goods and imposed visa restrictions on Turkish nationals.
Since then, ties between Ankara and Moscow have normalized. However, the ban on tomato imports remained, and was only lifted in September when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Turkey.
