Food Corridor: Turkiye's Successful Role as Mediator.

• Author: Guney, Nursin Atesoglu
• Position: COMMENTARY

Turkiye's latest success, in bringing the warring sides of Ukraine and Russia to an agreement on the export of grain out of Ukraine's ports, is due to Ankara's long time rational strategy of having access to both capitals by keeping the dialog open even during times of conflict. Turkiye is the only country in the world that is speaking to both sides at the same time and this skillful diplomacy of hers has given its fruits finally in the newly signed grain deal- which is going to be effective in helping to avert the anticipated worldwide food shortages. Before going into the details of this grain deal, how Turkiye has managed to assure and bring together both Moscow and Kyiv to sign an agreement, even though fighting is continuing on the ground in Ukraine, needs to be analyzed. To understand the details of this grain deal one needs to focus first on the Turkish diplomacy that has been on track before and during the Ukraine war, with the Russian and Ukrainian governments.

Turkiye's relations with Ukraine go back long before the current war, due to their cultural, historical, and geographical relations. In fact, in the early 1990s Ankara was among several administrations to officially announce the recognition of a sovereign Ukraine. Since then, Turkiye has always defended Ukraine's territorial integrity, especially when Crimea was annexed by Russia. The relations between Ankara and Kyiv have grown stronger with a bilateral military cooperation agreement signed on February 3, 2020. Accordingly, Turkiye was going to allocate about 25.8 million dollars to meet the requirements of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for the purchase of military and dual-use goods in line with this newly inked agreement. The volume of cooperation between the two sides was quite extensive but due to the outbreak of war, most of the objectives of this agreement could not be finalized. However, the purchase of Bayraktar TB2 armed unmanned aerial vehicles and three ground control stations by the Kyiv government in 2019 was later revealed and has subsequently proven its great combatting value during the Ukrainian war. Hence, it is not a coincidence that the world community, following the Second Karabakh War, started talking about the efficiency of Turkish drones and how they have positively changed the combat capacity of Ukraine. Likewise, one of the most eminent American political scientists, Fukuyama, stated a year ago that Turkiye's drone success has elevated Ankara's standing in the international arena, a development which he interpreted as a sign of a historic shift in warfare with which Turkiye is changing the balance of power in the Middle East. (1) Ukraine, with a limited number of 20 purchased Bayraktar drones, was able to use them successfully at the inception of the war. However, Western military supplies and support were needed against the massive Russian air assault and Moscow's other capabilities to accomplish a turn in the tide of war at the end of the first phase. Moreover, according to the military deal of 2020 Ankara has promised that it will facilitate Ukraine to produce drones themselves. But the war has unfortunately hindered some of these plans for cooperation between the two countries. What is more important, Selcuk Bayraktar, producer of the drone, during a video interview given to CNN international said that Ankara will not be selling this drone capacity to Russians. This strong pledge certainly proves Turkiye's fair standing toward the Kyiv government during this war.

In another example, Turkiye after a few days of examining the Russian assaults on Ukraine came to a legal conclusion that what is happening between the two sides can now be defined as 'war.' Therefore, it was straightforward for Ankara to apply one of the clauses of the 1936 Montreux Convention that gives the right to Turkiye to close passage of the Bosphorus straits to warring sides. Ankara's action of closing the Turkish straits was launched...