Cracks in Turkish-Russian ties begin to show
Mistrust instead of the spirit of mutually beneficial political cooperation is guiding current relations between Ankara and Moscow.
Turkish-Russian ties are following a different trajectory today to what they were a year ago when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was promoting the notion of a strategic relationship in the making.
Developments in the Middle East, North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus have shattered that illusion.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put the matter in stark perspective last week when he said Turkey was not Russia’s strategic ally.
“We have never qualified Turkey as our strategic ally,” he said during a radio interview.
