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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent visit to Russia produced some significant symbolic messages. The first goal of the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin was to tell the United States and European Union, “We can solve our problems without you, even despite you, and become friends.”
For the past 300 years, Turkish-Russian relations have been shaped by the dynamics of their relations with the West. There is a historical tendency for Russia and Turkey to use their bilateral relations as a card to play in their ties with the West. Turkey especially has sought to improve its relations with Russia whenever ties with the West seemed shaky.
