Jean Marcou, Professor of Law at Sciences Po Grenoble, researcher at CERDAP2 and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul.

Nine o'clock in the morning on Istiklal Caddesi, Istanbul. A young Russian woman, her hair a mess, calls out to the Turkish security forces stationed outside the Russian consulate. Two policewomen, their hands in the pockets of their jackets and berets screwed on their heads above their pin-straightened buns, keep her at a distance, looking worried. She wants to come in, but it's closed", says a passer-by who has been watching the scene, it seems, all along.

It's Saturday and a little early, but especially since the start of the Ukrainian crisis, the Russian Consulate General in Istanbul (former embassy of Tsarist Russia in Ottoman times) has been transformed into a fortress. Riot barriers were erected in front of the entrance, while an imposing security detail was deployed around it (police personnel, armored vehicles...). Wearily, the young woman finally leaves, pulling out a small suitcase and grumbling. The policewomen mockingly watch her walk away, and a few ironic comments are made by the onlookers as they disperse.

Turks are fond of Russian tourists, as they have become the country's leading tourist population over the past decade, but they are currently shocked by the violence of the war and the ordeal experienced by Ukrainian cities. For its part, as we said in an earlier column, the government has remained cautious, although its position has been welcomed by its Western allies. While it has condemned the invasion of an independent country, supplied it with sophisticated weaponry, closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to warships and agreed to accept Ukrainian refugees, it has also tried to protect its relationship with Moscow, by refusing to apply the sanctions decided by the West, and by posing as a mediator. Is this position likely to change?

Turkey still hesitant

In many ways, its initial response the Ukrainian crisis has taken Turkish diplomacy back to its earlier traditions which, particularly in the wake of Mustafa Kemal's interwar policy interwar policy followed by Mustafa Kemal, was for Turkey to avoid getting involved in to avoid getting involved in conflicts, especially those in its own neighbourhood. This reserve remained perceptible in the context of the Cold War, following after Turkey joined NATO. It's true that the situation has gradually changed since the end of the bipolar world and the arrival of the AKP to power. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has often given the impression of drifting eastwards, forging ever closer ties with Vladimir Putin's Russia. This relationship has transcended economic economic and energy cooperation into highly sensitive areas (construction of a nuclear power plant by Rosatom, purchase of Russian military equipment, etc.) and has seen the two countries come to a strategic agreement in certain regional theaters to the detriment of the West (as, for example, in Syria or the Caucasus). or in the Caucasus).

However, there has never been reversal of alliances, with Turkey remaining a member of NATO and Russia and Russia hindering its integration into Eurasian organizations such as the Shanghai Group. Above all, Ankara has established solid cooperation with Ukraine Ukraine (denouncing the annexation of Crimea or supplying military including the famous Bayraktar TB2 combat drones) as well as with other Russia's adversaries in the region, such as Poland. Although Westerners did not reproach Turkey for this double game after the war began Turkey has undoubtedly joined the club of "cautious" states, which is in the majority in the Middle East, if we consider the neighbouring attitude of Israel by Israel, the Gulf monarchies, Iraq and Egypt.

Meeting between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Emmanuel Macron in Brussels

And yet, since mid-March 2022, a mutation seems to have begun. The extraordinary NATO summit summit held in Brussels on March 24, Ankara sought to reintegrate to reintegrate itself into the concert of influential players in Western defense, from which it has distanced itself through its untimely initiatives in recent years (multiple convergences with Russia, gas exploration campaigns in the Eastern Mediterranean and confrontations with Greece or France...).

To journalists accompanying him back from Brussels, the Turkish president explained that he had learned two lessons from the Ukrainian crisis : firstly, NATO had confirmed that it was "the cornerstone the cornerstone of European defense", and on the other, Turkey has shown that it remains an essential player in the regional security the Alliance wants to promote. A far cry from Erdoğan's comments in the wake of Russia's aggression a month ago, when he month ago, when he explained that the Alliance had lacked determination and failed failed to react effectively.

The summit summit was also an opportunity for the Turkish head of state to meet bilateral meetings with his Western counterparts. The most significant was his meeting with Emmanuel Macron. Here again, the the Turkish leader's stance contrasts with his last visit to the Ukraine in early February 2022, during which he visit to Ukraine, during which he expressed the view that Angela Merkel's departure Merkel's departure had created a leadership problem that explained the shortcomings of current European governance. This Franco-Turkish seems to be explained by the fact that both presidents are in contact contact with Vladimir Putin.

While the offensive by the Russian army did not result in the rapid victory expected, many people in Turkey are beginning to think that Russia may be revising territorial claims to the eastern part of Ukraine and its coastline. Ukraine and its Black Sea coastline. Of course, Turkish mediation mediation in particular the highly publicized attempt to bring Sergei Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba, at the second diplomatic forum in Antalya (March 11-13 2022), have so far not been very convincing, but the offensive offensive has stalled in the meantime. As a result, Ankara believes that the context remains ripe for negotiations in which Turkey would play a key role. key role. Also on his return from Brussels, Erdoğan announced that he would be calling Vladimir Putin to offer to work together to find "an honorable way honorable way out" of the current conflict.

The S-400 ball and chain

The fact remains that, while the Turkish head of state was able to meet the French president on a one-to-one basis at the Brussels summit, he was unable to get a private meeting with Joe Biden, which in fact shows how difficult it is for him to return to the heart of the Alliance. The reason for this failure undoubtedly lies in the still uncertain future of Russia's S-400 air defense missiles, which Turkey has unwisely acquired since 2017, and which it is now dragging around like a ball and chain. As we know, this acquisition led to Ankara's exclusion from the US production program for the latest-generation F-35 aircraft, and is now even preventing the Turkish army from acquiring F-16s to urgently modernize its aging combat air fleet.

Neither the US President nor Congress seems prepared to give in to the Turkish president's advances and grant him his right to return to the alliance's reliable nations, until he has got rid of the S-400s. Senators Jim Risch and Bob Menendez, who are in charge of the Hill dossier , seem particularly adamant on this point. The United States proposed to the Turks that they donate their bulky missiles to Ukraine , a suggestion quickly rejected by Fahrettin Altun, one of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's top advisors, who deemed it "unrealistic".

So it's easy to see why the meeting with the French president, and those with other European leaders shortly afterwards, were a consolation prize, although the question of renewing Turkey's combat air fleet and, more generally, of the country's exact place in the Alliance, remains unanswered. On his return from Brussels, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, bitterly shared this with the journalists accompanying him, expressing astonishment that Emmanuel Macron, who had claimed in 2019 that NATO was "brain dead", could currently play such a crucial role within the Alliance.

In any case, French President and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi also took the opportunity the opportunity to relaunch negotiations with the Turkish president negotiations for the acquisition of the Franco-Italian air defense missile SAMP-T air defense missile, which had been put on hold after Turkey took delivery of its first S-400s. by Turkey. Paris will also involve Ankara in the humanitarian intervention operation that France operation in Marioupol to evacuate civilians. civilian populations. This is an important first step, confirming the rapid improvement in confirms the rapid improvement in Franco-Greek-Turkish relations, after the extreme extreme tensions observed since 2019. However, it is clear that Turkey's return to its Western allies is likely to take some time. Requiring be overcome, it thus resembles a kind of westward drift, destined westward drift, designed to make us forget the eastern temptations of recent years. temptations of recent years.

In the meantime, over the past weekend, the very concrete drift that the Turkish authorities authorities had to deal with was that of an isolated in the Bosphorus, the origin of which remains uncertain to this day. to this day. The discovery of the device paralyzed traffic in the strait for several hours. for several hours. According to Russian intelligence services (FSB), the mine the mine may have originated from a Ukrainian port protection device whose broken by a storm, a hypothesis immediately denied by Kiev. denied by Kiev...