Is Turkey's balancing act becoming more complicated as war rages in Ukraine?
The war in Ukraine has found Turkey stuck in a balancing act between the West, Ukraine, and Russia as it’s entangled geographically, economically, politically, and militarily with the war’s protagonists. Rather than take a clear side, Turkey’s President Erdogan has made it clear that he does not want to turn his back on either Russia or Ukraine, and his solution is to offer himself as a possible intermediary. As the war drags on, however, this policy of fence-sitting is likely to become more and more complicated. Professor Henri Barkey joins our host Thanos Davelis to discuss his latest piece in Kathimerini, which analyzes Turkey’s balancing act between the West, Ukraine, and Russia and looks at Erdogan’s options moving forward.
Henri Barkey is the Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Read Henri Barkey’s op-ed in Kathimerini here: A tangled web for Turkey in Russia’s war with Ukraine
You can read the articles we discuss on our podcast here:
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