Russia-Turkey relations (21st Century Crisis)

Russo-Turkish relations  (Russian: Российско-турецкие отношения, Turkish: Rus-türk ilişkileri) are the bilateral relations between the United Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey. They are continuation of Soviet-Turkish relations, however Turkey does not consider it to be a continuation of Russo-Ottoman relations.

During the Cold War, Turkey was partitioned into a communist, secular and atheist north, and an Islamist, democratic and capitalist south, to which, the Soviets supported the former.

During the modern-day, relations have become somewhat rocky. Turkey did recognize the transition from the Soviet Union to the United Russian Federation in 1998 under president Alexander Rutskoy. However, under the presidency of anti-Islamic and anti-Turkish Vladimir Zhirinovsky, relations cooled significantly, before warming up again during the presidencies of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin - to which, Moscow crticized Turkey for re-introducing Islam in Turkish politics, and many Russian leaders have suggested cutting relations with Turkey, due a contrevoursial law passed by then-president Vladimir Zhirinovsky, which limited any high ties, be it commercial or political, with Islamist regimes.

However, relations have significantly improved, with high commercial ties between the two, Turkey imports oil, steel and gold from Russia, and a number of Russian companies operate in Turkey and vice versa. Although a former NATO member, after getting expelled from NATO, Turkey capitalized and made a bid to rejoin the Russian bloc, including signing a security and defense agreement with Russia in 2016, renouncing support for Russia's enemies (such as North Syria, Albania and Kosovar sepertaists), and backing Russia and her allies in global affairs.

History
During the rise of the Islamic Development and Justice Party, under the leadership of President Abdullah Gül, concerns were raised in Russia about the Islamist party. Russia paid close attention to the new government in Turkey.

In 2010, Turkey was among a large coalition of NATO states and U.S. allies that supported military actions Bashar al-Assad, and supported the Arab Spring. The Russian government criticized Turkey, and soon enough, retaliated by sending military police into the Arab Spring nations.

In addition, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that Turkey would increase assistance to the Kosovo Liberation Army, to which Turkey stationed more troops in Albania and separatist-held Kosovo. Russia and Yugoslavia both retaliated by deploying the S-400 and S-300 air defense systems into Serbian Kosovo.

Upon hearing of the confiscation of Armenian properties in Turkey, Russia responded by carrying controversial bombings, destructions and shut-downs of mosques in the Caucasus, formerly Azerbaijan, and enacting further restrictions on Muslims in the Caucasus.

Putin also signed the "Zhirinovsky Bill" into law, requiring that the president and prime minister is a Russian Orthodox, and puts spirituality priority on the Russian Orthodox. In addition, the Putin also created an amendment that banned the Muslim Brotherhood in Russia, Russian police conducted sweeps all across Russia's predominantly Muslim republics.

In 2014 and 2015 however, Turkey became rocked by terrorist bombings, committed by North Syrians, the KLA and Albanians, who felt that President Erdoğan was not doing enough "for his allies". This resulted in a lot of unexpected moves by Turkish authorities: President Erdoğan began to crack down on migration from North Syria and Saudi Arabia.

In 2016, President Erdoğan threw in the towel, expelled North Syrian, Saudi, Albanian and Kosovar diplomats from Turkey, and flew to Moscow to hold bilateral talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin, to which, Turkey was expelled from NATO. After Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was murdered by a Turkish-North Syrian off-duty police officer, President Erdoğan lambasted Aleppo, and Turkish federal authorities began massive deportations of North Syrians in Turkey.

In addition, President Erdoğan also announced that Turkey will no longer be purchasing oil from Saudi Arabia, and will purchase petrol products from Russia instead, signing a deal with Russian gas giant Gazprom, and would conduct transactions in the Russian ruble, and not the U.S. dollar.

It is then, that Russia allowed Turkey to join the West Asia-North African Alliance, led mainly by Russia, Egypt and China.

Putin allowed for a security cooperation with Erdoğan, meeting with the latter during a later bilateral visit to Ankara, where Turkey and Russia signed the Karlov Agreement. This included a deal with Russian steel company Novolipetsk Steel, to help Turkey build a wall along its southern borders, to which, both Turkish and Russian military and police personnel would keep a close eye.

The Russian government also gave the greenlight for the sales of the S-400 air defense system to Turkey, and there are talks about selling the BMPT-Terminator AFV to Turkey as well.