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Erdogan under pressure over threat to Tatars in Ukraine

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is boxed in by a looming civil war in Ukraine and an intractable conflict in Syria.
A sign is pictured inside the 16th-century Tatar Khans' palace in Bakhchisaray April 2, 2014. From the 16th-century Tatar Khans' palace in Bakhchisaray to the former tsarist residence that hosted the World War Two Yalta conference, Crimea's heritage sites have become a source of bitter contention since Russia seized the region from Ukraine.   REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis  (UKRAINE - Tags: TRAVEL SOCIETY) - RTR3JPF8
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Turkey is increasingly caught between a rock and a hard place as the crisis to its north in Ukraine threatens to slide toward civil war, and the actual civil war to its south in Syria moves in a direction it never expected, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gradually reconsolidating his position militarily. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s warning in a Bloomberg interview that Ukraine is sliding into civil war has heightened concerns in Ankara.

Turkey, already suffering negative fallout from the Syrian conflict, is bracing itself for the possibility of another, similar conflict near its borders that is bound to have negative political, social and economic consequences. Ankara has been trying to sustain a delicate balance between Moscow and Kiev since the Crimean crisis broke in March, but it is aware that the balance might tip if events in eastern Ukraine get further out of hand and turn into a Yugoslavia-type bloody conflict.

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