The statements from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the United States this week have brought the warming of the waters of the Black Sea to a tipping point.
In the midst of this tension, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's visit to Ukraine at the beginning of February is extremely critical for the prevention of a possible confrontation and the maintained sobriety of the parties involved.
President Erdoğan is also expected to have a face-to-face or telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin before or after this visit.
To be realistic, no country today, except Turkey, has the power to mediate between the two sides. NATO, the U.S. and the European Union represent one side of the conflict against Russia. In fact, none of the European leaders who mediated the Minsk Protocol to end the war between Russia and Ukraine in the last decade are in office today. Neither German Chancellor Angela Merkel nor French President Francois Hollande is in power today.
The strong European will or influence that was put forward seven years ago is missing today and is incapable of preventing the possibility of a conflict that was rekindled in 2022.
At this stage, it is necessary to look at what Turkey can do now. In order to better understand Turkey's position on this issue, it is worth looking at the statements made by President Erdoğan on his return from Albania Tuesday.
While underlining that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not a realistic scenario, Erdoğan also warned that the region could not accept another war.
"I do not see Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a realistic approach, because Ukraine is not an ordinary country. Ukraine is a powerful country. In addition, in order for Russia to take this step, it needs to review the situation in the whole world and its own situation," he said.
Also stressing that war needs to be erased from the history of politics, Erdoğan said: "The reasoning, 'I'll occupy the lands or I'll take them,' will not work anymore."
It is clear from these statements that Turkey neither supports the stance that "War is inevitable, Russia will invade Ukraine," reiterated by Washington almost every day nor backs the steps Russia intends to take toward an attempt to invade.
Meanwhile, the initial reactions from Russia toward Turkey's statements are relatively positive. Russia will only welcome efforts if Turkish partners can encourage Ukraine to implement the Minsk Protocol, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.
In fact, this is not the first statement Peskov has made about the subject. He had made similar statements in December saying that if Turkey convinces Ukraine to implement the Minsk Protocol, its mediation is welcome.
"We welcome the efforts of any countries that can help resolve the situation in Ukraine. The main disagreements between Russia and Ukraine are connected precisely with the stalling of the implementation of the Minsk agreements by Kyiv. If our Turkish partners can influence Ukrainians and encourage them to fulfill their earlier agreements and commitments, this will be welcome," the spokesperson told reporters at a daily briefing in Moscow.
As a critical point of Peskov’s statements, he also called the situation in Ukraine "very tense," claiming the escalation is happening because of the West's military support of Ukraine.
"We see arms deliveries there, we see various maneuvers, we see flights of military aviation of NATO and Western European countries. This all leads to the escalation around Ukraine," he added.
In short, it would not be wrong to say that the demands that Russia wants Ukraine to accept are beyond the Minsk Protocol, which has now become almost dysfunctional. Because Russia's demands at the NATO Council-Russia talks were far beyond these protocols. Moscow angrily walked out of meetings with NATO last week, demanding that the alliance stop expanding eastward and withdraw its troops and military equipment from countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, NATO member states neighboring Russia. Russia had also asked NATO for security guarantees, calling the alliance's expansion into its region a threat.
So, what were the articles of the Minsk Protocol that Peskov asked Turkey to convince Ukraine about?
Ukraine and the Russia-backed separatists agreed on a 12-point cease-fire deal in the capital of Belarus in September 2014. Its provisions included prisoner exchanges, deliveries of humanitarian aid and the withdrawal of heavy weapons. However, the agreement quickly broke down, with violations by both sides.
After that, another package of measures, Minsk II, was signed between the representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the leaders of two pro-Russian separatist regions in Minsk on Feb.11-12, 2015. The leaders of France, Germany, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine also issued a declaration of support for the new deal.
Despite this, now after seven years, the parties are accusing each other of non-compliance with the provisions of the agreements. In addition, Russia already emphasizes that it is not a direct party to the Minsk Protocol and the conflict at every turn. Thus, Moscow also implies that the provisions of the agreement are not binding from a legal and diplomatic point of view.
Now, based on this, it is not clear what Moscow wants from Ankara's mediation. However, it is very clear that Moscow is actually sending a message to NATO while asking Ankara to exert influence over Kyiv.
In this sense, Moscow's insistence on the fact that it is not obliged to implement the Minsk Protocol at every chance it gets, adds to the difficulty of the situation. The most important impasse here is that on one hand, Russia wants Turkey to put pressure on Ukraine to abide by the terms of the agreement while on the other it refuses to comply with them.
However, Ankara is quite experienced in handling such problems. On top of that, Turkey is the last country to want a new conflict in the Black Sea region. President Erdoğan's statements on this issue also confirm this.
Washington has already started beating the war drums that it will not pay the price of while a strong will from the European leadership is still to be seen. Moscow has already come to terms with the possibility of a war. Turkey is the only country that can contribute to preventing the conflict and avoid its costs for all.
