Russia's president Vladimir Putin has renewed his criticism of Turkey for shooting down a Russian war plane near the Syrian border last week and warned Ankara to brace for further reprisals.
Russia has already imposed economic sanctions on Turkish agriculture and tourism that will blow a hole in the thriving trade between the Black Sea neighbours.
In a televised state-of-the-nation speech yesterday, Putin ratcheted up the pressure, saying Turkey’s leaders would come to regret ordering the attack on the Russian plane.
“If anyone thinks that having committed this despicable war crime, the murder of our people, they are going to get away with some measures concerning their tomatoes or restrictions on their construction and other sectors, they are profoundly mistaken,” he told the audience in the Kremlin.
Turkmen rebels
Russia’s intervention in
Syria
has angered Turkey, a staunch opponent of President Bashar al-Assad. Adding to the tensions, Russia has been bombing territory held by Syrian Turkmen rebels – the descendants of Ottoman Turks who once controlled the country. Turkey took action on November 24th, shooting down a Russian war plane near its border.
Traditional rivals for centuries, Russia and Turkey have recently established economic interests. Only a few weeks ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, set a goal for trade between the two to grow threefold in the coming decade to reach $100 billion (€91 billion) a year, mainly with vast energy projects. Turkey's attack on the Russian jet threatens to torpedo that plan as both sides threaten economic reprisals.
Putin opened his address with a call for a minute’s silence to honour the Russian pilot killed in the Turkish attack.
In a vitriolic outburst, he accused Turkey of supporting jihadists in Syria by buying oil from Islamic State. It was all part of a familiar treacherous pattern that had seen Turkey finance terrorists in Russia’s North Caucasus during two violent separatist wars in the 1990s and early 2000s, he said.
Beyond the heated rhetoric, there are questions about how far Russia will be prepared to go in punishing Turkey. Putin knows that to engage in a war with a Nato member would be madness, provoking other countries in the US-led military alliance to come to Turkey's defence. Meeting Erdogan on the sidelines of an international climate conference in Paris this week, Barack Obama reaffirmed Turkey's right to defend itself, but called for a diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis.
Escalating tensions will set back US efforts to draw Russia into the international alliance fighting Isis in Syria, a task already complicated by the Kremlin’s abiding support for Assad.
Russia would like to be part of the alliance, but on terms that will allow it to retain its military and economic interests in Syria and a major say in any political resolution of the four-year civil war there. Turkey also wants a seat at the negotiating table when Syria’s future is decided. If it is to be influential in the process, it’s important that Russia stops attacking Turkmen positions in Syria.
Putin did not reveal what extra reprisals the Kremlin plans against Turkey. So far the Russian response has been fairly moderate. Economic sanctions announced this week will see most Turkish fruit and vegetables disappear from Russian shops from the start of next year. A ban on charter flights that carry millions of Russian tourists to Turkey’s Black Sea and Mediterranean beaches has already come into force.
The Kremlin has also placed restrictions on Turkish transport companies in a move that will hinder traders bringing cheap clothing and household goods to Russia and to markets elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.
Putin knows there is only so far he can go with sanctions without placing an unbearable burden on ordinary Russians already facing a sharp drop in living standards caused by an economic recession.
Food embargoes
Russian food prices surged by 15.4 per cent last year after Putin banned imports of agricultural produce from western countries that had imposed sanctions on Russia over
Ukraine
and are likely to rise again as Turkish fruit and vegetables are withdrawn from the market. Russia’s agriculture minister drew a line in the sand yesterday, promising that no additional Turkish food products will be embargoed.
Russia has not cut off natural gas supplies and it is hoping to hang on to a $22 billion contract to build a nuclear plant on the Turkish Mediterranean.
“Allah has already decided to punish Turkey’s ruling clique, depriving them of mind and reason,” he said,