Russian-Turkish relations came a long way since Turkey downed a Russian jet late last year. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin carried out bilateral talks aimed at ending hostilities between the two countries and agreed to launch a joint operation against ISIS in Syria.
“Let’s fight against the terrorist group together, so that we can clear it out as soon as possible,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday in comments following the meeting in Russia.
While two regional superpowers teaming up to fight ISIS may sound great in theory, the news is likely to be received skeptically by the Syrian people. Russia’s involvement in the Syrian war began in the fall of 2015, when it began airstrikes that it said targeted terrorist groups in the war-torn country. The truth, however, was that Russian airstrikes didn’t always target ISIS — in fact, many hit areas without any ISIS presence and actually targeted groups fighting ISIS on the front lines.
Russia then claimed to withdraw from the Syrian civil war in March 2016, but continued a severe bombing campaign in Aleppo — Syria’s largest city — months later. The bombings in Aleppo killed many in the rebel-held part of town, including civilians.
In fact, the Russian airforce bombed Aleppo just hours before the most recent ceasefire.
“When it comes to the Russian position in Syria, we really haven’t seen a meaningful shift,” Oubai Shahbandar, a former U.S. Department of Defence official who currently serves as an adviser to the Syrian National Coalition, told Al Jazeera on Thursday. “In fact, just hours ago, before the so-called temporary ceasefire in Aleppo, we saw instances of barrel bombs full of chlorine gas dropped in rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo city.”
While Russia hasn’t exactly endeared itself to the Syrian people, Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian war hasn’t been widely praised either — especially since border guards started shooting at refugees trying to cross the southern border.
Some also see a Russian-Turkish alliance as evidence cooling ties between regional powers and the United States.
“The U.S. is blamed for failing to cooperate with the Turkish authorities for the extradition of [exiled political leader Fethullah] Gulen — the alleged mastermind of the [July 15] coup attempt,” Dimitar Bechev, a visiting scholar at Harvard University and a senior fellow at Al Sharq Forum, wrote in Al Jazeera Tuesday.
The talks between the two countries were closely watched in the Middle East, and some analysts believe Russia and Turkey’s warming relations spell an end to U.S. hegemony in the region.
“The Middle East is shifting interest away from the West and to the East,” Dr. Imad Salamey, a political science professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut and author of a forthcoming book on communitarianism in the Middle East, told ThinkProgress during an interview at his Beirut office. “Russia, Iran, Turkey, and China are more relevant players in Middle Eastern politics and people in the region are watching Erdogan and Putin’s meeting very tentatively.”
Salamey said Obama’s lack of action in Syria is a major reason behind waning U.S. influence. Syria is one of the few key policy issues where Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton breaks from the Obama administration and says she will reset the U.S. Syria policy.
Republican nominee Donald Trump, meanwhile, has said he would “get together with Russia” to “knock the hell out of ISIS” and spoken repeatedly of how he would work with Russia in Syria.