Impossible alliance with Russia

Could this “Atatürk love”, born out of the rulership’s ideological and political ruin, at least serve some purpose in winning over the Kremlin?
If taking refuge in Atatürk is to have a foreign leg - and why not? – this is to be a “Russian leg”. A connection needs to be made that is not visible at first sight between “taking refuge in Atatürk” and “taking refuge in Russia.”
Both of them are actually impossible for the rulership in Ankara. They can take refuge in neither Atatürk nor Russia.

But, this impossibility does not preclude us from postulating the said relationship.
The aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution saw Turkish-Russian relations entering their most glorious years. They coincided with the War of Salvation and the ensuing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk revolution. At that time, there were reasons that impelled Bolshevik Russia and the Republic of Turkey to forget their shared past replete with enmity and wars and make peace. Both regimes were established through fighting Western imperialism and the priority of both was to consolidate and take forward their own revolutions.
The young Republic was secular and had embraced the slogan “Peace at home, peace in the world.”
This staved off a clash between the common interests of Turkey and the Soviet Union of the day and paved the way for them to establish good relations.
And today?
Does the fact that the leader the President of Turkey, Erdoğan, has spoken to most in 2017 is the Russian Head of State, Putin, harbinger the two countries embarking on a path towards an alliance?
The leaders of Turkey and Russia, taking that of Iran with them, most recently convened the day before yesterday in the city of Sochi for the purpose of discussing a political solution to the Syrian issue.
This is Erdoğan and Putin’s sixth appointment this year.
It was all the more remarkable given that the holding of the meeting came among the outpouring of wails of “Let’s leave NATO” triggered by the obscure scandal that took place on the exercise in Norway.
Even greater confusion reigned in people’s heads.
It is natural for there to be a breakdown of orientation in a country that is incapable of creating foreign policy due to its own errors.

Take, for example, the results of Istanbul Economics Research’s Turkey Monitor poll.
According to this, 59.7% of the people of Turkey think that current foreign policy is negatively affecting the economy. A mere 22.8% takes a positive view. With the proportion of those supporting EU membership standing at 52% in September, this rose to 57% in October.

On the other hand, a fairly high proportion believes that Turkey can meet its security needs outside NATO: 67%. The proportion who support the proposition stated, “Turkey should enter a political, economic and security alliance with Russia” stood at 71.5%. As against this, a mere 16.5% is of the opinion that, “Russia regards Turkey with friendliness.”

The confusion revealed by the poll, conducted with 1537 people in twelve provinces between the dates of 1-13 November, is as follows: We have now grown accustomed to saying that the “trend of moving away from the West” depicts the thing we call “foreign policy.” With the people on the one hand thinking this is something that has a bad effect on the economy, on the other, leaving NATO and entering a multidimensional alliance with Russia courts their approval. The incongruity does not end here: A significant portion of those who say ‘Yes’ to a comprehensive alliance with Russia have also increasingly begun to warm towards EU membership. While, in fact, the Russian and EU choices are not, mutually speaking, complementary, but, quite the reverse, exclusive.
There are two main factors that keep any relationship of alliance, strategic or not, in place: Common interests and common values.

For example, with reference to Syria which has given rise to the meeting in Sochi, if Turkey and Russia manage to take one step together, it is doubtful whether a second will follow.

The US’s ally PYD/PKK is Turkey’s chief concern in Syria. Russia for the time being has no such worry. The issue for Russia is to keep the Damascus regime alive and, so, strengthen its own presence in the region. Russia has afforded Turkey the possibility of playing a role in Syria on condition that it remain within the former’s parameters. It thinks that, in this way, it can move Turkey further away from the West, but this does not mean that it wants to make it its partner. The concerns over Afrin of a Turkey that has consented in advance to its dependence will not be taken into account by Russia, because Russia does not wish for the US to establish a Kurdish monopoly in Syria, especially with Washington declaring its intention of staying in this country for years. If we move away from Syria and look at relations on the Eurasian scale, Russia’s official ideology is church-supported Orthodox Christian Russian nationalism, while that of Turkey is Sunni political Islam. These two values clash and their holders cannot, even if they see the West as the common enemy, act jointly. A security alliance between Turkey and Russia is a fantasy.