Russia-Ukraine war and Turkey

According to the latest survey conducted by the MetroPOLL Centre for Strategic and Social Research, 48% of the Turkish people hold the US/NATO responsible for the invasion of Russia. The bright side of this research is that only 7.5% of the Turks think that Ukraine is responsible for this. Today is the 36th day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Anti-Westernism in Turkey is one of the main concepts that binds the Turkish people together whether they be on the right or on the left side of the political ideology. The Turkish leftist who carries a romantic admiration for Soviet Russia for their help during the war of Turkish Independence war, and the right-winger who seeks a balancing power against the West both meet under the umbrella of a fuzzy Eurasianism. When Atatürk's principle of full independence comes to mind in Turkey, which is also situated geographically in the middle of eastern and western type of administrations, the West and the East are necessarily seen as alternatives to each other, and those who trust the West are relatively in the minority. In this case, if there is a problem, the West is definitely in it, that is, Russia may have attacked Ukraine, but the reason for this attack is the provocation of the West.

From this point of view, it is quite understandable that Turkey tries to establish a balance between the East (Russia) and the West (Ukraine and the countries that support it) in this conflict and it does not participate in the sanctions of the West. Moreover it is a fact that Turkey is currently in an economic crisis and will be pushed to choose a side sooner or later. Also the wealth of the Russian oligarchs looking for a safe port to escape from the sanctions of the west arouses great appetite. 

Although a swift peace would be the most pleasing outcome for Turkey, their influence on the matter seems to be rather restricted in organising peace talks between the sides. However it would be quite surprising if Turkey would accept the proposal of Ukraine to be one of the guarantor states just for the sake of peace. Although Ukraine's proposal seems to have value on paper, how many of the guarantor states would volunteer to be included in this conflict if it starts again? There are only two examples of such a treaty in the world in which the guarantor state concept has been applied. One of these is the Zurich and London agreement, in which the United Kingdom and Turkey are the guarantor states in Cyprus. One of these states did not fulfil its duty as a  guarantor in the time of need, and for Turkey, which did, the result of this is an international problem that has not reached a solution for the past 50 years. Moreover, the Ukraine-Russia war cannot be compared with Cyprus in terms of its dimensions. 

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