Why Turkey is in crosshairs of Chechen leader

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Muslim-majority Chechnya region and a loyalist of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has triggered a fresh spat between Turkey and Russia by suggesting to name a park in Chechnya after Turkey’s public enemy No. 1, amid ongoing disagreements between Ankara and Moscow over Syria and Ukraine. According to the sources familiar with the matter, Kadyrov’s hit to Ankara’s sore spot was a manifest of an ongoing face-off between Ankara and the Chechen leader that also involves a Russian spy network that Turkey claimed to have busted in November.

In retaliation to Turkey naming a park after Dzhokhar Dudayev, Chechnya’s pro-independence leader in the 1990s, Kadyrov suggested that a park in Chechnya could be named after Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdish militants fighting against the Turkish government. 

“I openly appeal to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Make up your mind! Either you receive the status of a state that publicly supports terrorists, or you advocate transparent and honest relations with the Russian Federation,” Kadyrov was quoted as writing on his Telegram channel, threatening Ankara to name a park in Grozny after Ocalan. 

The incident could have been passed over as another Kadyrov antic had he not received support from the Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry. Arguing that Kadyrov's reaction was “emotional,” but also reasonable, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “We have already notified our Turkish colleagues via diplomatic channels that we, to put it mildly, do not approve of such names in Turkish cities.”