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2 months of war in Ukraine: America’s ally suddenly took action against Russia

2 months of war in Ukraine: America's ally suddenly hurt Russia - Photo 1.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Photo Al Zaeera

According to the Financial Times on April 24, Turkey has banned Russia’s armed forces from using its airspace to approach Syria in a bid to increase pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin as Ankara tries to revive peace talks with Ukraine.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Russian military aircraft would no longer be able to transit through Turkey en route to Syria, where Moscow has played a key role in backing President Bashar al-Assad’s regime – Assad.

“We have closed our airspace to Russian military flights and even civilian flights carrying military personnel to Syria,” he told journalists during a visit to Uruguay, according to the broadcaster. TRT state.

Analysts say the move will further complicate logistics for Russia in Syria, after Turkey restricted foreign warships from sailing from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean shortly after the Ukraine war began. head.

Charles Lister, director of the Syria program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said on Twitter that Moscow’s only “viable air supply route” for now would be through Iran and Iraq.

Turkey will remain open to commercial flights to and from Russia, refusing to follow the EU in closing its airspace to Russian flights due to the importance of tourists to the economy of the country.

Cavusoglu said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had informed Putin of the decision and that the two leaders were continuing their dialogue.

The United States and other countries have asked Turkey to use leverage over Moscow in Syria and increase its strength, said Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East program at the Philadelphia-based Institute for Foreign Policy Studies. pressure on Putin.

Grandfather Aaron Stein said: “It took some time for Ankara to step in, but after almost two months, Ankara has taken another step to squeeze Moscow in Syria more than Ukraine.”

Turkey has sought to strike a delicate balancing act since the start of the war in Ukraine, sparking the biggest war on European soil in 80 years. Most European nations closed their airspace to Russian flights shortly after the war began but Ankara has instead sought to mediate.

Turkey has also supplied armed drones to the Ukrainian armed forces, although it has resisted signing off on Western sanctions.

Ankara’s decision to pressure Russia in Syria, where Turkey controls swathes of territory and has a large military presence, underscores the complicated relationship between Erdogan and Putin.

The two leaders have built a close personal relationship in recent years, but have also faced each other on the battlefields of Syria, Libya and the disputed Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Ankara has sought to facilitate peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. Negotiators from other countries held two high-level meetings in Turkey in March and April but failed to reach a breakthrough.

Speaking on Friday, Mr. Erdogan said that Turkish officials were looking to set up phone calls to restart peace talks for Ukraine.

Omer Ozkizilcik, a security and foreign policy analyst based in Ankara, said that pressuring Russia in Syria was an attempt to force Russia to be “more serious in negotiations”.

“If you want Russia to make a deal and come to terms, you need to have strength in this area and you need to use hard power. Turkey has been doing this for several years,” he said. over and still doing it”.

Ozkizilcik said that Ankara, which this week launched a new offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, may seek to use its leverage over Russia to green-light an operation. similar in northern Syria.

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