Was that all Putin and Erdoğan got after 5 hours?

Murat Yetkin writes: It is a cliché to say “a photo tells a thousand words” but it is true most of the time. Does this photo taken when the doors opened after talks between Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian host Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin tell anything positive and promising to you? Erdoğan will have to find a way to normalize relations with his European and American allies, considering that it can no longer rely on a permanent relationship with Russia.

Duvar English

Journalist Murat Yetkin, in the last piece he penned for his personal blog, analyzed the outcome of the meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on March in Moscow. Yetkin argued that although Erdoğan could not take much from Putin, Russia-backed Syrian regime forces could not take Idlib back.

According to Yetkin, the NATO and U.S. support to Turkey in its retaliatory attacks against Syria played a key role in Russia’s repositioning itself. This has marked a breaking of ice between Tuırkey and the U.S. was has gone thicker since Kobani incident of 2014, Yetkin said.

"Erdoğan will have to find a way to normalize relations with his European and American allies, considering that it can no longer rely on a permanent relationship with Russia. Perhaps it is the end of the 'Shift of Axis' story, after “Neo-Ottoman” story as the West would like to see, which could hopefully mark the end of over-ambitious foreign policy moves towards the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring which caused a major disarray in the Middle East," he wrote.

Yetkin's piece in full can be reached here.