Spotlight: Turkey looks to repair ties with demanding Russia after jet incident

As the cost of losing Russia as a close partner is growing ever higher, Turkey appears to be looking for ways to mend ties with its northern neighbor which have been deeply scarred after Turkey downed a Russian jet back in November, 2015.

Analysts, however, do not see any detente in a short while. In recent months, Turkish officials have been particularly careful in their choice of words toward Russia, in an apparent bid to keep chances alive for a possible reconciliation.

Then came a report last weekend in a Turkish daily, Aydinlik, which claimed that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would soon pay a visit to Turkey.

The report also maintained that representatives who are close to top political figures in the two countries had recently come together in an unofficial meeting.

As if to confirm the contacts between the two sides, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the story about Lavrov's visit was published that Russia had lately started to act in a more reasonable way rather than emotionally.

Underlining that Turkey reluctantly shot down the Russian jet as it was violating Turkish airspace, Cavusoglu said in an interview with the A Haber news channel, "This (Russia's sensible attitude) is a good sign ... We will normalize relations should Russia takes steps in the days ahead."

Russia, however, made it clear on Tuesday that it does not share the optimism of the Turkish foreign minister about the prospect of normalized ties.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a somewhat-sarcastically-worded statement that it was unaware of any steps taken by Turkey to better relations.

Claiming Cavusoglu's remarks were just part of "the Turkey-launched campaign of distorting the real state of affairs in bilateral relations," the statement said that "For the time being, there are no prerequisites for discussing their potential normalization."

A Russian Su-24 bomber was downed on Nov. 24 last year by a Turkish F-16 fighter on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey. Russia denied the jet, which was bombing rebels near the border in Syria, had violated Turkey's airspace.

Describing the incident as the biggest crisis in history between the two countries, Russia imposed a comprehensive set of sanctions against Turkey.

Analysts are not optimistic about the prospect of normalization in ties in the short run, but underline it is in the best interests of both countries to shake hands.

"No development has taken place since Nov. 24 that would make one optimistic," said Habibe Ozdal, a Russia analyst from the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization (USAK).

The tension with Russia, which has already begun to take its toll on the Turkish economy, may cost Turkey up to nine billion U.S. dollars in the worst-case scenario, namely no relations with Russia, Mehmet Simsek, Turkey's deputy prime minister in charge of economy, said back in December.

But the real cost may be even higher as the sanctions will also have indirect repercussions for the economy.

Turkey's exports to Russia sharply fell in the first quarter of this year to 364 million dollars, marking a 61 percent decrease year-on-year.

According to a study by the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey, the sanctions are expected to cost Turkey between 2.3 billion and 8.3 billion dollars in 2016.

What made things worse is that one of the two pilots of the downed bomber was killed by rebels after ejecting over Syrian territory.

Russia has been demanding, for the normalization of ties, an apology, compensation for damages and the punishment of those responsible for the incident.

The Russian demands have so far been rejected by Turkey, but Alparslan Celik, a Turkish citizen whom Russia accuses of having killed the pilot, was arrested in the western Turkish city of Izmir on April 3.

Celik, who had previously admitted to having been involved in the killing of the pilot, was arrested over court's order for possessing unregistered firearms. The charges, however, should not be expected to meet the expectations of Russia which is exploring opportunities to bring criminal charges against him for involvement in the murder of the pilot.

USAK's Ozdal noted that no crisis between nations should be expected to last forever, though she revealed her skepticism about reconciliation in the near future, saying "It seems quite difficult, if not impossible, for Turkey to accept Russian demands such as apology and reparation."

Interestingly enough, Celik's arrest came only days after some officers from the Russian military met, in the first ever visit after the jet incident, with their Turkish counterparts in a military base in Izmir.

The official visit by the Russian delegation at the end of last month took place as part of routine efforts by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to boost trust among member nations.

Numan Kurtulmus, a spokesman for the Turkish government, said in his comment on the visit, "Neither Russia nor Turkey would be willing to do without the other."

Noting the two countries have strong ties in various areas although they may be rivals at the same time, Kurtulmus observed that Turkey and Russia would not break relations just because of the jet crisis.

Including a ban on the import of some agricultural products as well as the sale of holiday packages, Russia's sanctions have particularly dealt a blow to Turkey's agriculture and tourism industries.

Russians constitute the second largest source of tourists after Germans who spend holidays in Turkey. Around 3.5 million Russians visited Turkey last year, but the figure is expected to drop by around two million this year due to the ban.

"This tension, in which there is no winner, is to the detriment of both sides," said Alev Kilic, director of the Ankara-based Center for Eurasian Studies.

Approximately one million people are employed by the tourism industry in Turkey and it is widely speculated that half may lose their jobs because of the sharp fall in arrivals.

Turkish tourism will also suffer heavily this year because of a series of deadly bombing attacks that have rocked Ankara and Istanbul in the past couple of months.

According to reports in the Turkish media, around 1,300 hotels have been put up for sale along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts following the Russian sanctions and the suicide bombings.

Hostility toward Russia has seriously weakened Turkey's ability to resist the potential formation of a Kurdish autonomous region along its border in the war-torn Syria, as Russia may now be more than willing to back Kurdish dreams to hurt Turkey.

The emergence of an autonomous Kurdish area in northern Syria is a nightmare scenario for Turkey as it fears the formation of such an entity would whet the appetite of its own Kurds.

Despite their diametrically opposed positions in the Syrian civil war, Turkey and Russia had managed to keep up good ties until the jet incident, by not allowing their differences on the Syrian front to spoil the ties.

But the tension rose when Russia got militarily involved in the conflict in late September last year and started bombing rebel groups including those in the Turkmen area near the Turkish border.

Turkey has been offering support to rebel groups seeking to topple the Syrian government, while Russia has changed, by its military intervention, the picture in favor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the five-year-old conflict.

Since the downing of the Russian bomber, Turkey has been unable to fly its jets into Syria to fight against the Islamic State due to threats posed by advanced Russian air defense missiles deployed on the ground. Endit