Hürriyet Daily News
April 6, 2022

Turkey playing pivotal role in Ukraine crisis: Nuland

A senior United States official has described the role Turkey has been playing in the Ukrainian crisis as “pivotal,” appreciating its mediation efforts between Moscow and Kiev.

“I would say Turkey’s played an absolutely pivotal role. Turkey’s been a stalwart defender of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity from the beginning. In every U.N. format, Turkey has said loudly and clearly, this is a bloody aggression, and we oppose it. Turkey has been a strong friend of Ukraine, both in terms of humanitarian support, in terms of security support,” Victoria Nuland, U.S. State Department undersecretary for political affairs, told the Hürriyet Daily News in an exclusive interview on April 4.

Nuland paid a visit to Ankara on April 4 to hold talks with her counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Önal, and presidential adviser İbrahim Kalın.

She was also hosted by Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

***

Recalling Turkey’s decision to implement the Montreux Convention to stop the Russian navy from passing through the straits into the Black Sea, Nuland said, “What Turkey did with regard to invoking Montreux was absolutely essential to ensure that the Black Sea couldn’t be used in this war.”

***

Putin’s war machine should not be fueled

On sanctions against Russia, Nuland said she had good talks with her Turkish counterparts about the punitive measures and the logic behind them.

“I think Turkey completely understands that we have to dry up the money that fuels Putin’s war machine and that he has to pay a high cost for what he is doing. You know, I think what’s most important, is that Turkey be very vigilant and not allow, even if it can’t join sanctions, its territory to be used to evade sanctions or to become a pool for dirty oligarch money. And I think there’s quite a bit of understanding of the risks of that in the government,” Nuland explained.

***

Turkey, US launch new mechanism

Nuland’s visit also meant to activate the Strategic Mechanism, a new instrument aiming to improve bilateral ties and resolve pending problems….

The beauty of the new mechanism is that it allows Turkish and American officials “to talk about all of the issues in one format,” the experienced diplomat noted.

“So we can talk about bilateral issues, whether it’s trade, whether it’s some of these irritants, whether it’s human rights and civil society, but we can also talk about regional issues, in Nagorno- Karabakh, Syria, Ukraine, and then we could talk about global issues, like, the fact that democracies now really need to stand together as the autocracies are rearing their heads, right?” she stressed.

***

“So, it reinforces in a certain way the point that we’ve been making which is, that when NATO allies can be interoperable and their systems work together, we are stronger, and we are not dependent on countries like Russia,” Nuland said.

***

Nuland also comments on the efforts by Turkey and Israel to normalize their relationship, which has already flourished hopes for revisiting energy cooperation between the two nations.

Opportunities in east Med

“First of all, it’s strongly in our interest, we believe it’s in the interest of both Israel and Turkey to have good strong relations, trade relations, energy relations. Among the things that this war highlight is the need for all countries that still have a high amount of imports of oil and gas from Russia in their mix to find ways to diversify and to diversify fast,” the experienced diplomat stressed.

There are lots of different kinds of opportunities in the eastern Meditteranean some involving Turkey’s nearer neighbors, some involving new exploration and new pipelines, Nuland suggested.

“So, we want to work with you on all of that, and we particularly want to help Turkey and its goal of diversifying away from Russian dependence,” she said.