ANKARA — Recent tensions between Russia and Turkey sparked by incidents along over the NATO member’s border with Syria could potentially bolster Turkey’s military and procurement ties with its Western allies, officials and observers said.
In recent years, Turkish relations with Russia seemed to be warming. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has complaining about a few times of inaction on Turkey’s bid to become a member of the European Union, and appealed to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to consider Turkish membership instead in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the former eastern bloc’s response to NATO.
In September 2013, Turkey selected a Chinese manufacturer for its critical program for the construction of the country’s first long-range air and anti-missile air defense system. At that time, Ankara eliminated a Russian bidder on grounds that it was too costly.of too high price.
But as Turkey’s contract negotiations with China Precision Manufacturing Import-Export Corp. have failed to produce results, any happy ending Western bidders [a US team of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and Europe’s Eurosam] for the same program recently have come back into the picture. again. And industry sources said earlier that the Russian government’s defense exporters also were seeking a return to the bidding process.
Turkey and Russia also were in "unofficial talks" for a potential Russian solution for Turkey’s indigenous fighter jet program.
"All that is history now," said one senior aerospace source. "The recent events showed to Ankara how unreliable as military partners Russians could be."
A procurement official admitted that geo-politics would always be a part of procurement mechanism.
"We just cannot ignore what happened with Russia [over Syria] recently. Imagine, what would happen if the same thing happened while we were trying to make progress in a program partnered with the Russians," he said.
A Western defense official in Ankara said that the Russian intervention in Syria against Turkish and NATO interests demonstrated showed to Ankara how Turkish and Russian interests in the Middle East and Caucasus are doomed to diverge.
"The Turks got the message, as I observe from my meetings with my Turkish counterparts," he said. "I hope that will further strengthen Turkey’s defense industry-related cooperation with its Western allies."
In June 2012, Russian air defense systems in Syria downed a Turkish RF-4 reconnaissance aircraft. Immediately after that Turkey said it had changed its "rules of engagement" over its border with Syria and would "disproportionately retaliate in case of any violation of its airspace along the Syrian border."
In 2014 and 2015 Turkey shot down a Syrian jet, a helicopter and a drone.
On Oct. 3 and 4, Russian warplanes twice violated Turkish airspace during Moscow’s bombing campaign in Syria aimed at bolstering the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
On Oct. 7, the Turkish military said that Syria-based [Russian] missile systems harassed Turkey's warplanes while eight F-16 jets were on a patrol flight along the Syria border. Turkey also said an unidentified MIG-29 harassed its jets on Oct. 6, prompting the Foreign Ministry to summon the Russian ambassador three times in protest.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that an Su-30 warplane had entered Turkish airspace "for a few seconds" on Oct. 3, "a mistake caused by bad weather," but NATO Oct. 6 rejected Moscow's explanation.
Email: bbekdil@defensenews.com
Burak Ege Bekdil was the Turkey correspondent for Defense News.
