Erdogan Joins Hands with Putin in Iran, Playing Both Sides of Ukraine War

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined hands with his Russian and Iranian counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Ebrahim Raisi, at a photo op in Tehran on Tuesday.

The display of unity was apparently meant to confer Russian and Iranian support for Erdogan’s agenda in Syria, where he wants to eliminate Kurdish forces he views as a threat to Turkish security.

AFP quoted the three authoritarian leaders proclaiming their joint determination to “ultimate[ly] eliminate terrorist individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities” in Syria, and their opposition to “the illegal seizure and transfer of oil revenues that should belong to Syria.”

This was a slap at the Syrian Kurds, who are not so much “seizing” Syria’s oil as sitting on top of it. 

The Kurds, a vital U.S. ally during the war against the Islamic State, control a semi-autonomous region of northeastern Syria that happens to include valuable oil resources. They have been embroiled in constant conflict with the regime of dictator Bashar Assad, and suffering cross-border attacks from Turkey, to retain their autonomy. Furthermore, the Islamic State is back in action, giving the Kurds another threat to deal with.

Erdogan, Putin, and Raisi jointly “rejected all attempts to create new realities on the ground under the pretext of combating terrorism, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives, and expressed their determination to stand against separatist agendas” — a clear warning to Western powers that they would not tolerate support for a Syrian Kurdish state.

“It should be understood clearly that there is no room in our region’s future for separatist terror organizations,” Erdogan growled to underline the point.

Erdogan’s problem is that Iran and Russia believe a new Turkish offensive into Syrian territory would destabilize the region and compromise their interests in Syria. The Iranians have been particularly vocal over the past few days in warning Erdogan not to attack the Kurds.

Turkey has long despised the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, while Russia and Iran intervened in the Syrian civil war on Assad’s behalf. This conflict nearly turned into a shooting war during a few tense weeks in November 2015 after the Turks shot down a Russian warplane that allegedly crossed into Turkish airspace.

More recently, the Russians grew upset with Turkey for selling highly effective drone weapons to Ukraine. The Turkish drones were instrumental in helping the Ukrainians score early victories against the Russian invaders — especially the Bayraktar drone, a red-hot military product that was designed by Erdogan’s son-in-law.

Erdogan was clearly signaling a shift in Turkey’s position by holding hands with the Russian and Iranian dictators on Tuesday, forming a trilateral alliance that supports the Assad regime as the legitimate government of Syria, in exchange for Russia and Iran backing Erdogan against the Syrian Kurds. If there is one thing all three powers — and Assad — wholeheartedly agree upon, it is their antipathy towards the Kurds controlling those northeastern oil fields.

“What we expect from Russia and Iran is their support for Turkey in its fight against terrorism,” Erdogan said bluntly during a recent interview.

Erdogan complained that both Russia and the United States agreed in 2019 to push Kurdish militants further away from the Turkish border, but “this still has not happened.”

The Turkish president has sought to stay on Putin’s good side by remaining neutral on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, even though Turkey is a member of NATO. Putin thanked Erdogan for his “mediation efforts” during a bilateral meeting in Tehran.

All three authoritarian leaders can see a clear opportunity to extend their influence after U.S. President Joe Biden’s disastrous visit to Saudi Arabia last week. Biden had barely touched down in Washington before the Iranians leaped to accuse the United States of destabilizing the region by “trying to create tensions and crises” and spreading “Iran-phobia.”

Deutsche Welle (DW) on Wednesday found the “symbolism” of Erdogan joining hands with Putin and Raisi unmistakably potent, especially after Biden’s faceplant in Saudi Arabia, but argued the trilateral meeting was short on “substance.”  

All three powers have some common interests and some irreconcilable disputes, which DW argued they have grown adept at ‘compartmentalizing” without seeking some grand compromise — with one notable exception:

Where they do see eye to eye is in their mutual suspicion of Western policies and values. If Iran does export drones to Moscow, its pro-Russian posture could be the nail in the coffin for the JCPOA and firmly tilt Iran toward Russia and China in the geopolitical realignments that are underway.

And then there’s the issue of energy supplies. Despite facing Russian energy competition from Russian oil on the market, Tehran is eager to cement the long-term cooperation agreements and can offer Moscow sanctions-busting and survival strategies that include using Iran as an export corridor. Notably, Gazprom and Iran’s oil company signed a $40 billion (€39 billion) Memorandum of Understanding to develop Iran’s North Pars Gas Field. And, of course, Tehran will also hope to benefit from grain deliveries.

The JCPOA is the Iran nuclear deal, which the Biden administration is frantically attempting to resuscitate even as Iran boasts it has reached the breakout threshold to build nuclear weapons. DW suspected that if the JCPOA is somehow revived and Iran backs down from building nuclear bombs, Putin and his budding trilateral alliance with Erdogan and Raisi will claim credit for the diplomatic “victory.”