Russia and Turkey

From The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive:

On 4 December 1920, the Politburo discussed the draft of Chicherin’s directives to P.G. Mdivani concerning Turkey. It was decided to work them out in consultation with Stalin. At this time Soviet Russia was establishing friendly relations with the government of Kemal Ataturk, helping him diplomatically to oust Allied contingents from Turkish soil. At the same time, as the following document indicates, Moscow was also trying to subvert the Turkish Republic from within.

Document 64

Central Committee Resolution on Turkey [Prior to 4 December 1920] The line of the Central Committee approved today is as follows:

Do not trust the Kemalists; do not give them arms;

concentrate all efforts on Soviet agitation among the Turks and on the building

in Turkey of a solid Soviet party of triumphing through its own efforts.

From Once Upon a Time in the West:

On July 1 Turkish authorities arrested 21 suspected coup plotters, including two retired senior generals, journalists, and politicians. Pictured above: Alleged anti-government conspirator retired General Hursit Tolon arrives for a medical check in Ankara on Monday. The intriguers are alleged members of the shadowy nationalist, secularist Ergenekon organization, which is critical of the ruling, pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül. A slow-motion coup was allegedly planned, beginning with engineered protests and riots across Turkey on July 7, culminating in the assassination of members of the judiciary. Turkey’s Constitutional Court is currently reviewing the legal status of the government party, which holds a solid majority in the Grand National Assembly.

[...]

The day after the coup plotters were arrested Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov coincidentally (or not) arrived in Ankara for talks with Turkish leaders. High on the agenda for the Soviets was ensuring that Turkey, which is a nominal US ally and NATO member, defends Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy for “peaceful purposes.” Pictured above: Lavrov (left) meets Turkish President Gul (right). On Wednesday Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan made the following comments about bilateral relations between his country and Russia: “Our objective for Turkey-Russia relations is a multidimensional and intensified partnership. Both sides have the willingness to further improve bilateral relations as they have considerable affinities in their approaches regarding international and regional issues.” Since Moscow has already infiltrated its moles into the NATO hierarchy and entire “post”-communist states into both NATO and the EU, Turkey’s accession to the latter actually facilitates East-West convergence, the primary and preferred objective of the Soviet strategists over war with the Western Alliance.

There is a famed Russian textbook on geopolitics called “The Foundations of Geopolitics”, written in 1997 by Alexander Dugin. Serving as a consultant to Dugin in the course of the book’s writing was Colonel General Leonid Ivashev, a former head of the International Department of the Russian Defense Ministry. The book’s preface was written by Lieutenant General Nikolai Klokotov, a former head of the General Staff’s training academy. Thus, what the book says should probably be of some interest to Russia watchers. Perhaps the best article in English on this book is by John B. Dunlop of the Hoover Institution. Below are excerpts from Dunlop’s paper that pertain to Iran, Russia, and Turkey:

A key reason for concluding a Grand Alliance with Iran, Dugin explains, is Russia’s need for a Muslim ally in its struggle against secular Turkey and “Islamic Saudi Arabia” with its dangerous Wahhabism. Turkey, it emerges, is to be treated as harshly as the United States and China. “It is important,” Dugin writes, “to take into consideration the necessity of affixing to Turkey the role of ‘scapegoat’ in this [Eurasian] project” (p. 244). Kurds, Armenians, and other Turkish minorities are to be provoked into rebellion. There is a need, Dugin stresses, to create “geopolitical shocks” within Turkey (p. 352). Like Azerbaijan, Dugin predicts, Turkey could in the future be dismembered by Eurasia-Russia, Iran and Armenia. If, however, such a dismemberment should not occur, then, like China, Turkey must be encouraged to expand exclusively southward, “into the Arab world through Baghdad, Damascus, and Riyadh…” (p. 244).

Turkey’s government is Saudi-backed and Wahhabi, which Russia may dislike.

Given the documented history of Russian interest in destabilizing, and possibly destroying, Turkey from within and ruling its territory, it is not suprising that the Russian foreign minister appeared in Turkey immediately after the arrests of mysterious plotters of a potentially devastating coup. The coup-plotters may reveal to their Turkish inquisitors that they work for Russia. It is obviously in Russia’s interest to pre-empt any fallout from such revelations. 

July 6, 2009: It is only recently that Russia has become outwardly friendly to Turkey.

Sure enough, Dugin is complaining that the arrests “amount to defying Russia.”

 July 7, 2008: Dugin’s ally Ergenekon is being defended by the Republican People’s Party (CHP), a fellow staunch ally of Dugin.

 

 

 

 

Tags: AKP, Dugin, Erdogan, Ergenekon, Hursit Tolon, Russia, Turkey