Following U.S. presidential elections, Türkiye will exploit its role as a powerbroker in the Russia-Ukraine war. Ankara believes it could facilitate de-escalation which will help it assert its role as a bridge between the West and Moscow as well as a rising pole in a growingly multi-centered global order.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan welcomes Russian and Ukrainian delegations for the bilateral talks in Istanbul on March 29, 2022. (Source: AP)

Ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Türkiye has been occupying a middle ground between the warring parties. On the one hand, much like any other NATO member, it has been speaking out in defense of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. What is more, Türkiye has provided material support as well as facilitated ammunition and weapons transfers to Kyiv from third countries. It closed the Straits to military vessels, in line with the Montreux Convention, preventing the build-up of the Russian Black Sea fleet. On the other hand, the Turkish leadership has refused to cut ties with Russia and President Vladimir Putin or to join and enforce Western sanctions. In the early years of the war, Türkiye’s trade with its neighbor spiked, both on the side of exports but also imports. Turkish airports are open to flights to/from Russia, and Russian tourists and expats are as likely to be spending time in Istanbul and along the coast as they were prior to February 2022. Türkiye has become the third largest consumer of Russian crude oil, following China and India.

Türkiye’s response to the conflict very much mirrors its reaction to previous episodes of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Ankara acted in a similar way in the wake of the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the subsequent escalation in the Donbas. All in all, Türkiye sees its role as a balancer and intermediary, and the full-scale invasion offers an opportunity for it to take a more active role compared to the past. The latter is a function of its growing capabilities and its experience in dealing with Russia since its intervention in Syria. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, therefore, believes that he could be a power broker between the various players involved in the war, including Russia, Ukraine along with its Western backers, the U.S., and major EU states. “Peace has no losers”, Erdoğan told the UN General Assembly in September 2023.

This attitude explains Türkiye's actions since the outset of the invasion: hosting an early round of diplomatic talks in Antalya and Istanbul in the spring of 2022, brokering the so-called Black Sea grain initiative in 2022-23, and currently being a key part of the “Humanitarian Corridor” crossing the sea. At the recent BRICS+ Summit in Kazan, Putin admitted that Erdoğan had "once again renewed [the] proposals […] related to shipping in the Black Sea”. In other words, Türkiye sees its role as a guarantor of the freedom of commercial navigation, which is an interest Moscow and Kyiv continue to share.

Türkiye’s policy has evolved. Erdoğan took a more forward-leaning approach at the beginning of the full-scale invasion when there was scope for mediation. With the evolution of the conflict into a relentless war of attrition following the autumn of 2022, the scope for Turkish diplomacy grew narrower. The war in Gaza and now the escalation between Israel and Iran have diverted Türkiye’s attention away from Ukraine, too.  At the time of writing, Ankara is essentially in a wait-and-see mode. The U.S. presidential election is a key inflection point that could define the future course of the war, Russia and Ukraine’s respective strategies, and, therefore, the Turkish course of action.

Factors shaping Türkiye’s policy

What informs Türkiye’s view of the conflict and foreign policy actions?

• First and foremost, Ankara’s response is a function of the governing elite’s vision of the country and its global place. Türkiye is no longer seen as a peripheral member of the Western alliance but as a middle power with its own interests, both at the regional and global level, and freedom to maneuver. President Erdoğan and his associates are betting on a plural and multi-centered world order; therefore, they are breaking away from the U.S. hegemony of the 1990s and 2000s. The Western-sceptic vision is behind Türkiye’s recent bid to join the BRICS+, a cooperation platform for emerging economies, which China, as well as Russia, are trying to convert into a focal point of the new global order where the U.S. and its allies are no longer at the center.

• Though Russia and Türkiye may share a general worldview, Moscow remains a principal adversary and threat – not just in the Black Sea but in other regions, too, as demonstrated by the Russian intervention in Syria in 2015 and onwards. Türkiye, therefore, needs the West as well as pro-Western countries such as Ukraine to balance against Russia as much as it needs Russia to strengthen its bargaining position vis-à-vis the West. Unlike Moscow, which has taken a hard revisionist line with regard to what scholars and analysts refer to as “Liberal International Order”, Ankara retains a stake in the latter and, for the most part, is interested in improving its position rather than overturning the existing norms and institutions.  

• Türkiye’s volatile economy, marred by high inflation, depends on cheap energy inputs from Russia's natural gas and, increasingly, oil. The Turkish state and private sector stand to benefit from being the middleman between European consumers and Russian suppliers. For instance, the TurkStream pipeline is likely to start shipping additional volumes of Russian gas to Hungary (and onwards to Central Europe) with the forthcoming closure of the long-standing route running through Ukraine.  

• The Turkish private sector, the backbone of the economy, has profited from the conflict but is taking a cautious tack. Banks, in particular, are wary of U.S. secondary sanctions and have lately tightened regulations regarding transactions involving Russian entities. Following the U.S. elections, business but also the Turkish leadership will keep on trying to limit negative fallback on U.S.-Turkish relations from punitive measures targeting Russia but also China. The defense industrial sector, an area that Türkiye wishes to develop, is particularly sensitive. That is why Ankara and Washington will continue to engage going forward.

• The war has bolstered public support for NATO as well as for the EU. A recent survey by the Pew Centre indicates that the two organizations receive the highest share of positive views, 46 percent and 42 percent, respectively, out of the Turkish representative sample. Russia’s favorability rating, meanwhile, is at 30 percent, down from a peak of 39 percent in 2019. President Volodymyr Zelensky is the foreign leader commanding the most confidence: 31 percent of the sample, followed by President Putin (29 percent). However, these percentages are overshadowed by 60 and 66 percent, respectively, distrusting the two presidents. To put things in perspective, the EU, NATO, and Russia’s overall rating is negative, too, with more people holding unfavorable rather than favorable. In short, Turks are generally distrustful and wary of the outside world but overall leaning towards the West.

What's next for the Black Sea?

Türkiye’s long-standing position was to uphold the Black Sea status quo. By keeping NATO at arm’s length, it aimed to ensure that local players – itself and Russia first and foremost – called the shots. With NATO enlargement put on hold after the Georgia war of 2008, Russian expansionism has posed the most serious challenge to Türkiye’s position. That is why Ankara tacitly supports the Alliance build-up in the region – on land and in the air domain, under the Enhanced Forward Presence deployments in Romania and Bulgaria. That provides a hedge against Russia and strengthens Erdoğan’s hands in negotiations with Putin. Upgrading Ukraine’s military capabilities – through the corvettes produced under the MILGEM programs – is part of this agenda, too. Türkiye is likewise trying to expand its foothold in the Southern Caucasus by exploring the normalization of ties with Armenia as well as encouraging the progress towards a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Though Russia is to remain a top player in the Black Sea, Ankara seeks to fill gaps and piggyback on NATO’s deterrence strategy.    

Prospects for relations with the U.S.

U.S.-Turkish relations are not in good shape, as demonstrated over the past years by the divergence over Gaza. Yet the trend has been moderately positive after Türkiye lifted its veto over Sweden’s accession to NATO earlier this year. The transfer of F-16 jets and modernization packages has now opened a discussion about readmitting Ankara into the F-35 program, too. Under the incoming administration of Donald Trump, President Erdoğan will try to leverage the personal relationship he built with Trump during his first term. Türkiye will continue to seek a favorable deal regarding the S-400 Russian-made missiles, the reason it was expelled from the F-35 consortium in 2019. The stakes for its national security, as well as for its defense industrial sector, are high. If Trump weighs in on Kyiv to accept a ceasefire deal with Putin, Erdoğan is likely to offer his services as a go-between again. At the same time, Türkiye would favor the U.S. and EU continuing to support Ukraine by not scaling down military aid. In all scenarios, it will use its ties to both Kyiv and Moscow as an asset in order to maximize its geopolitical weight and extract deals from the West.

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Dr. Dimitar Bechev is the Director of the Dahrendorf Programme on Europe in a Changing World at the University of Oxford's European Studies Centre. He is also a Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe. His research focuses on the international politics of Europe and he has written extensively on Türkiye, Russia and the Balkans.

IstanPol thanks Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Turkey Office for their contribution to this project. The views stated in this paper belong to the author and need not agree, partly or entirely, with the institutional views of IstanPol or Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.