Closed borders with Turkey: the coronavirus or politics?

Expert’s opinions

On April 15,, a ban on flights from Russia to Turkey was introduced, as reported by the operational headquarters for combating the spread of coronavirus infection (COVID-19). 

But is everything as unambiguous as we think?

Many people may see in this decision measures that are aimed not only for fighting the coronavirus.

Recently, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he doesn’t recognize the “annexation of Crimea”.

“We also strongly defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the sovereignty of Turkey. We have once again confirmed our principled decision not to recognize the annexation of Crimea,” — he said.

https://life.ru/p/1307876

It can be assumed that this statement could have influenced the closure of the borders.

We decided to ask this question to Grigory Prutskov — Associate Professor of the Department of Foreign Journalism and Literature of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University and concurrently Candidate of Philological Sciences.

— Grigory, do you think that Erdogan’s recent statement about the non-recognition of the “annexation of Crimea” played a role in the closure of the borders, or were the borders closed solely because of the coronavirus?

— Erdogan has been declaring the non-recognition of Crimea as Russian for seven years, and this fact has not hindered tourism before. In principle, his latest statement, after which the borders were closed, is no exception from the previous ones. If we look at the statistics of coronavirus infections in Turkey, it is extremely alarming. In addition, big politics isn’t always linear: when a foreign partner did something nasty to us, and we responded to him exactly the same, as, for example, in the case of the expulsion of Czech diplomats from Russia. Therefore, I believe that the borders were closed primarily because of the increase in the incidence of diseases in Turkey. But, at the same time, they seemed to give a delicate and unobtrusive signal to Erdogan: if he doesn’t behave more carefully in relation to the geopolitical interests of our country, the opening of the borders will be postponed for some time.