Стр. 28 - V

Электронное приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»
Author : D. Baranov
Attaché, Embassy of the Russian Federation in Turkey
RUSSIAN-TURKISH diplomatic relations marked their
95th anniversary on June 3, 2015. Russia and Turkey, each
of which is situated partially in Europe and partially in Asia
and possesses a rich cultural and historical heritage, are, in
a sense, bridges between East and West.
After the collapse of the Russian and Ottoman empires,
the two countries began to build their relations from
scratch. This was largely the result of the international sit-
uation of those days and the revolutions in Russia and Turkey.
The Decree on Peace, passed by the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of People's
The campaign against bourgeois and imperialist states declared by the Russian Communist Party
(Bolsheviks), its plans to export revolutions to other countries in order to have proletarian gov-
ernments established there, and Russia's withdrawal from World War I in violation of its pre-
revolutionary military alliance commitments became obstacles to the country's international
recognition. Embroiled in a civil war, the young Soviet state found itself in diplomatic isolation.
Given the instability along Russian borders, it is in the interests of Moscow to maintain good-
neighborly relations with Ankara, as this directly affects Turkey's positions on various interna-
tional and regional issues.
An important aspect of the Soviet-Turkish relations of the 1930s was economic cooperation.
Soviet loans and assistance from Soviet specialists enabled Turkey to create light industry and
build large state-of-the-art cotton factories in Kayseri and Nazilli.
DESPITE the positive start of contacts between the two young states with a rich shared history
and the warm relationship developed between the governments of the RSFSR and the Soviet
Union, on the one hand, and Turkey, on the other, it was not long before Moscow and Ankara
came up against their first difficulties, which largely had objective causes.
DURING THE LAST DECADE of the 20th century, major changes in the global system of
international relations inevitably affected Russian-Turkish relations.
When the Soviet Union ceased to exist, Ankara realized that Turkey no longer played the im-
portant role of a deterrent of Moscow's policies assigned to it by the United States. Washington
was now lending Turkey much less money and seriously cut down its weapons supply. This put
Turkey in a situation where it essentially had to look after itself.
In the run-up to the 95th anniversary of Russian-Turkish diplomatic relations, cooperation be-
tween the two nations once again stood the test of endurance, and it can be asserted confidently
that Moscow and Ankara can successfully solve any problem by combined efforts.
Ninety-five Years of Russian-Turkish Diplomatic Relations: His-
torical Facts and Prospects