A week after Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane, tensions between Turkey and Russia show no sign of easing.
On the contrary, the propaganda war unleashed by one beacon of authoritarianism against another is fast turning into pernicious blackmailing.
Russia is claiming Turkey is illegally trading oil with ISIS and President Erdogan and his family are profiting from it.
Dismissing the accusations as slander, Mr Erdogan is claiming to have evidence of Russia’s involvement in the illicit oil trade and threatening to reveal it to the world.
The Russian Embassy in Ankara announced that their Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be presenting their evidence of ISIS oil trading with Turkey to the United Nations.
So far, Russian claims have not proved anything. The US State Department spokesman Mark Toner rejected the accusation and said that they saw no evidence to support it.
However, it is no secret that ISIS has been selling oil in Iraq, Syria and via various middlemen to Turkey. In recent days, both President Obama and other senior US officials called on Turkey to deal with security gaps at its border with Syria. The Turkish side said it was ready to cooperate.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, firmly rejecting Russian claims, accused Moscow of peddling a fabricated narrative.
“Those who adopt the language of threats and sanctions should know that Turkey cannot be blackmailed,” he said.
Yet, this is exactly what is happening.
Vladimir Putin, himself synonymous with authoritarianism, cronyism and corruption is exploiting his new-found enemy’s weaknesses and inconsistencies.
Would he be able to do that if Turkey’s own leader had not done everything in his power to establish a Putin-style presidency?
If he did not silence his opponents, cracked down on the media?
If he had not undermined the independence of the judiciary and the principle of separation of powers?
If, as it was clearly stated by the EU, the government’s response to allegations of corruption targeting high-level personalities, including members of the government and their families, had not been discriminatory, non-transparent and partial?
Could Putin be so bellicose and arrogant if Turkey’s own politicians, judges, prosecutors, journalists were able to hold their government to account?
When presented with serious allegations of corruption involving members of his government and family in December 2013, the then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed it by saying “Those who call it a corruption inquiry are corrupt themselves”.
The majority in the Parliament and the courts of the land have decided there was nothing more to be said.
Who could have thought that Putin, their role-model and inspiration, would be the one to turn the tables on them?
The crisis between Turkey and Russia has shown, once again, that the need for democracy and rule of law is as great as ever.
We all knew of the heavy toll the authoritarian trajectory of Erdogan’s politics had on Turkey’s internal security. Now, we are also discovering what a serious vulnerability it has become for its national security and diplomacy.
This post is also available in: Turkish
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