Despite its NATO membership, Turkey has continued its slide into the Kremlin’s sphere of influence, as illustrated by Putin pitching his country’s Su-35 and Su-57 jets to Erdogan while Russian cargo planes landed in Ankara carrying the second battery of the S-400 air defense system.

Even so, Erdogan’s visit to Moscow was less about shopping for Russian military hardware than it was about his desperation for Putin’s help in stopping the advance of Bashar al-Assad’s forces into the Turkish military’s area of operation in northwest Syria.

Recently, Syrian regime forces surrounded a heavily fortified Turkish observation post in Morek, at the southern tip of Idlib province. Before then, Syrian war planes had struck Islamist militants traveling alongside a Turkish military convoy as it attempted to resupply the besieged post.

Amidst that military confrontation, Putin refused to take a call from Erdogan for several days.

Later on, the Kremlin informed Ankara that the Russian president could meet his Turkish counterpart at the MAKS air show. Thus, the real priority for Erdogan’s hastily arranged trip to Moscow was to prevent other Turkish outposts and troops in Idlib from suffering a similar fate.

Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting in Moscow, Putin’s spokesperson had stated that “Turkey is our very close partner, it’s our ally.” He also hinted that the talks were going to be as much about Russian arms sales to Turkey as tensions in Idlib.

Kowtowing to Putin

As it happens, Putin not only treated Erdogan to a frozen dessert reportedly “sold” by an undercover agent of his security service, but also discussed further sales and joint production of military hardware.

In his warm response to Putin, Erdogan said, “We want our solidarity to continue in several areas of the defense industry. This can be passenger or war planes. What is important is the spirit of cooperation.”

Erdogan’s kowtowing to Putin failed to win him any favors in Idlib. Assad’s forces not only continued their advance, but also struck targets near another Turkish observation post on Wednesday.

U.S. Congress weighing in on Erdogan

The Turkish president’s cozying up to Putin has drawn the ire of the U.S. Congress. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, hours after the arrival of the second S-400 battery in Turkey and Erdogan’s declaration of interest in Russian jets, called on Trump to “sanction Turkey … as required by U.S. law.”

The next day, U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper stated that unless the S-400 system is completely removed from Turkish soil, Turkey cannot rejoin the U.S.-led F-35 fighter jet program.

Conclusion

For all of Erdogan’s near-constant bluster, Putin continues to play Erdogan like a fiddle.

As it stands, unless Washington and its transatlantic allies develop a concerted counter-strategy, Moscow will continue to exploit the man in Ankara to whom its analysts already refer as “Our Man in NATO.”

***Aykan Erdemir is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and faculty member at Bilkent University’s Department of Political Science and Public Administration.

He is a former member of the Turkish Parliament (2011-2015) who served in the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, EU Harmonization Committee, and the Ad Hoc Parliamentary Committee on the IT Sector and the Internet.

As an outspoken defender of pluralism, minority rights, and religious freedoms in the Middle East, Dr. Erdemir has been at the forefront of the struggle against religious persecution, hate crimes, and hate speech in Turkey.

He is a founding member of the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief, and a drafter of and signatory to the Oslo Charter for Freedom of Religion or Belief (2014) as well as a signatory legislator to the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism.

Dr. Erdemir holds a PhD in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. He was a doctoral fellow at Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a research associate at the University of Oxford’s Center on Migration, Policy and Society.

In March 2015, Dr. Erdemir was awarded a distinguished fellowship at the Oxford Centre for the Study of Law and Public Policy.

Dr. Erdemir has edited seven books, including Rethinking Global Migration: Practices, Policies, and Discourses in the European Neighbourhood (KORA) and Social Dynamics of Global Terrorism: Risk and Prevention Policies (IOS Press).

He is co-author of the 2016 book Antagonistic Tolerance: Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites and Spaces (Routledge).