Cavusoglu on Wednesday also denied that Erdogan’s visit to St. Petersburg was meant to send a message to Turkey’s allies in the West, which Ankara accuses of not showing Turkey sufficient support since last month’s failed coup.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have vowed to restore an “axis of friendship” between Ankara and Moscow amid Turkey faces strained relations with the West.
Analysts say that in a light of elevated anti-Western sentiment, Erdogan’s move to warm relations with Russian Federation may harden Turkey’s alienation from its traditional allies.
Regarding the long-awaited missile defense system, Cavusoglu said that Turkey first sought cooperation with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries; however, so far the results were unsatisfactory.
“Turkey’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation membership is not in question”, she added. “We need to set up our own defense system and develop our own technology in cooperation with other countries”, Cavusoglu said.
Previously, tension between Turkey and Russia was high when Turkey shot down a Russian military jet in the Syrian border last November 2015. “If the West loses Turkey one day, it will not be because of Turkey’s relations with Russia, China, or the Islamic world, but rather because of themselves”.
Putin and Erdogan took a big step towards normalizing ties on Tuesday, with their leaders announcing an acceleration in trade and energy links.
An expert claims that the visit of Erdogan to Saint Petersburg will send strong message to the West meaning as “Ankara has options”. The Russian president cannot only claim to have won the poker hand with Erdogan but also to have renewed a partnership with a country that is crucial to Russia’s economic and geopolitical interests (exporting gas is one of these) – to the extent that his Turkish counterpart said he was ready to take bilateral agreements to a “higher” level than before the crisis.
Recent reports in the Turkish media, picked up and amplified by the Russian press, have blasted Turkey’s allies for their lukewarm condemnation of the coup attempt and suggested that they may even have had a hand in it.
Turkey has been criticized by the European Union and Washington over Erdogan’s crackdown on his political opponents after a failed coup in July.
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He also conveyed his condolences for those who had lost their lives during the coup attempt, it added.
