Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is a member of NATO, spoke by telephone on Sunday about the demands presented by Moscow with regard to the Atlantic Alliance around the Ukrainian crisis.
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The Turkish presidency claimed that the two presidents had “discussed steps to take to improve relationshipsBetween the two countries. The Kremlin said the two leaders had “confirmed the intention to strengthen the mutually beneficial partnership between Russia and Turkey“.
But Moscow clarified that Putin and Erdogan had “also touched on international issues, including the well-known proposals to establish legally formalized agreements that would guarantee the security of the Russian Federation, as well as the situation in the Caucasus and the issues of settling the crises in Syria and Libya“.
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Multiple tensions
Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Mr. Erdogan’s Turkey maintain partnership relations despite divergent or competing interests in different areas such as Syria or Libya where they are major players.
The two countries were also in the shadow of a recent armed conflict in the Caucasus between Turkish-speaking Azerbaijan and Armenia-backed Nagorny Karabakh, a country which houses a Russian military base.
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Tensions have also risen between Moscow and Ankara around the Ukrainian crisis recently, with Putin criticizing his Turkish counterpart for providing the Ukrainian army with armed drones, used against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. .
In return, as the West has worried for weeks about a possible Russian intervention in Ukraine, accusing Moscow of amassing troops and armor near the border area, Ankara last week criticized the Kremlin for making demands “unilateralTo NATO.
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Limit NATO’s influence
While denying the plan to invade Ukraine, Russia unveiled on December 17 treaty proposals to limit American and NATO influence in its neighborhood.
The two texts presented provide for prohibiting any expansion of this military alliance – in particular to Ukraine – and any establishment of American military bases in the countries of the former Soviet space.
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The issue was the subject of two telephone conversations in two months between Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden, which threatens Russia with severe retaliatory measures in the event of military intervention. It should also be the subject of a meeting on January 12 of the NATO-Russia Council, a consultation body created in 2002.