Turkey’s Black Sea Predicament: Challenging or Accommodating Russia?

Turkey’s Black Sea Predicament: Challenging or Accommodating Russia? Mitat ÇELİKPALA* & Emre ERŞEN** Abstract This article seeks to explore the development of the new security environment in the Black Sea and its implications for the future of regional dialogue between Turkey and Russia. The radically altered strategic balance in the Black Sea after the RussianGeorgian war in 2008 and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 have urged Turkish policymakers to revise their traditional policies toward this region. Yet Ankara currently faces four main challenges in this quest: i) maintaining the status quo established by the Montreux Convention, ii) protecting its interests vis-à-vis Russia’s strengthened military presence in the Black Sea, iii) dealing with the significant security implications of the three Russian anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) spheres built around Turkish * Prof., Kadir Has University, Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, Istanbul, E-mail: ** Assoc. Prof., Marmara University, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Istanbul, E-mail: 72 territories, 4) accommodating the diverse Black Sea policies of its NATO allies without alienating Russia. Key Words Turkey, Russia, Black Sea, Caucasus, NATO, Montreux Convention, Jet Crisis. Introduction Turkey and Russia are the two most significant regional actors in the Black Sea region. While the former has the longest shoreline among all the littoral states surrounding the Black Sea, the latter has geopolitically dominated the region since the 18th century. Before the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, the Black Sea was mainly viewed as a “Turkish lake” due to the Ottoman Empire’s centuries-long regional dominance in the Balkans and Crimea. For many years, this hegemony enabled the Ottomans to exercise absolute control over access to the Black Sea through the Turkish PERCEPTIONS, Summer 2018, Volume XXIII, Number 2, pp. 72-92. Turkey’s Black Sea Predicament: Challenging or Accommodating Russia? Straits. Yet the Ottoman supremacy was challenged by an ever-expanding Russian Empire, which strived to gain access to the Black Sea’s warm waters. The Ottoman-Russian wars of the 18th and 19th centuries – including the Crimean War of 1853-1856 – were the most important signs of the fierce geopolitical rivalry between the Ottoman sultans and the Russian tsars over the Black Sea. Following the dissolution of the two empires after World War I, their successor states- the newly founded Republic of Turkey and the Soviet Union- succeeded in developing a different relationship with each other. Moscow’s economic and military support for the Turkish War of Independence in Anatolia started a brand new period in Turkish-Russian relations. Eventually, during the 1920s and 1930s the Black Sea became a region of cooperation between the two countries in parallel with their improved political and economic ties. The Turkish-Soviet dialogue particularly played an important role in the diplomatic process that led to the signing of the Lausanne and Montreux conventions on the regime of the Turkish Straits. Signed in 1936, the latter became the main international document regulating access to the Black Sea for commercial ships and warships. Even though Turkey and the Soviet Union became adversaries as members of the two opposing blocs after World War II, the geopolitical balance that was established in the Black Sea with their cooperation managed to survive the Cold War. Moscow’s economic and military support for the Turkish War of Independence in Anatolia started a brand new period in Turkish-Russian relations. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 provided fresh opportunities for the establishment of a new environment of dialogue and cooperation between Ankara and Moscow. The two countries worked together in order to preserve their privileged status in the Black Sea, and built a number of regional mechanisms to check the expansion of Western military influence in the region. Yet the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 urged Turkish leaders to revise their policies about the Black Sea. The Turkish-Russian disagreement over Syria, which triggered a serious crisis between the two countries in late 2015, also significantly hampered the regional dialogue between Ankara and Moscow. 73 Mitat Çelikpala & Emre Erşen The goal of this article is to discuss and evaluate the development of the new security environment in the Black Sea, as well as its implications for the future of the Turkish-Russian regional dialogue. Although the two countries managed to normalize their relations following the fighter jet crisis of 2015, Ankara still finds it difficult to accommodate Moscow’s interests in the region. The rising tensions between NATO and Russia also weaken Turkey’s efforts to follow a policy of balance in the Black Sea. In this regard, it can be argued that Turkey currently faces four key challenges in reshaping its Black Sea policy: i) maintaining the status quo established by the Montreux Convention, ii) protecting its interests vis-à-vis Russia’s strengthened military presence in the region, iii) dealing with the security implications of the three Russian anti-access/area denial (A2/ AD) spheres built around Turkish territories, iv) accommodating the diverse Black Sea policies of its NATO allies without alienating Russia in the region. Evolution of the TurkishRussian Modus Vivendi in the Black Sea Despite its longstanding strategic ties with NATO, Turkey’s policy in the Black Sea in the post-Cold War period 74 has largely been shaped by its desire to develop a regional cooperation scheme together with the Black Sea countries rather than its Western allies. This socalled “regional ownership” approach brought Turkey’s position closer to that of Russia, as it is also in line with Moscow’s efforts to curb the rising influence of the EU and NATO in the region.1 The Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), which was established in 1992, in particular provided a significant platform in which Ankara and Moscow could gradually strengthen their regional dialogue as well as bilateral economic relations in the field of tourism, energy and trade. BSEC also helped the two countries develop new channels for regional economic cooperation in other sectors, including transportation, agriculture, banking and finance.2 Despite its longstanding strategic ties with NATO, Turkey’s policy in the Black Sea in the post-Cold War period has largely been shaped by its desire to develop a regional cooperation scheme together with the Black Sea countries rather than its Western allies. A major outcome of the improved Turkish-Russian dialogue in the Black Turkey’s Black Sea Predicament: Challenging or Accommodating Russia? Sea has been the establishment of a number of additional multilateral cooperation schemes designed to strengthen regional stability and security. Although Turkey sup (...truncated)