Leaders | Russia and Turkey

No room for manoeuvre

Don’t let the downing of a Russian plane wreck the campaign against Islamic State

TURKEY’S strike on a Russian warplane on November 24th may have been avoidable, but it was hardly an accident. Turkey claims that, in the five minutes before two Sukhoi jets flew briefly across a finger of territory that pokes into Syria, it issued ten warnings. And despite Russia’s denials and a suggestion that the missile may have struck one of the jets after it had crossed back into Syrian airspace, the run of the evidence is in Turkey’s favour. Russia was provocative; Turkey was hot-headed. The task is to ensure that the winner is not Islamic State (IS).

That is now a danger, because the loss of the plane threatens to poison relations between two countries intimately involved in the civil war inside Syria, on opposite sides. (Russia backs Bashar al-Assad’s regime; Turkey, some of its Sunni foes.) Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has called Turkey’s act a “stab in the back by the terrorists’ accomplices”. He vows “serious consequences”. Even now, Russia is bombing Syrian Turkomans, who have an affinity with Turks and live close to the border (see article). Yet friction between Turkey and Russia would frustrate what should be the overriding aim of countering IS and bringing peace to Syria and Iraq.

A grave responsibility thus falls on the shoulders of the French president, François Hollande. Determined after the IS attacks on Paris and armed with a UN resolution, Mr Hollande is shuttling from capital to capital to galvanise the effort against IS. On November 25th he spoke to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president. A day later he was due to be in Moscow to meet Mr Putin (see article). Mr Hollande’s task has just become harder, but it is also more crucial than ever.

Two things are needed to limit the fallout from Turkey’s strike. The first is continuing public support from its NATO allies. Over the past year Russia has repeatedly encroached on NATO airspace, particularly around the Baltic states. After previous incursions, Turkey warned Russian jets and shot down a drone—which Russia disowned. NATO has a principled interest in discouraging further intrusion and in presenting a united front. Both require it to back Turkey.

Second, and privately, NATO members need to urge Turkey to show restraint and to change its behaviour. Turkey is hindering the campaign against IS. It is more interested in striking Kurds inside Syria and removing Mr Assad than it is in crushing the jihadists. Moreover, it has failed to stop the flow of IS’s oil out of Syria and the flow of money and recruits back in.

Avoiding escalation is the easy part. Harder is the need to persuade both Turkey and Russia to focus more on IS. Turkey needs to understand that, just as its NATO allies back it, so it has responsibilities towards them. Some Turks argue that fighting IS will only help the Kurds. Even if that were true, Turkey also stands to suffer from the depredations of IS—witness two bombs in the past few months, in Ankara and Suruc, that between them claimed even more lives than the Paris attacks did. If Turkey really wants to get rid of Mr Assad, the only way is to work with Russia, not to fight it.

Something to agree about

Is Russia biddable? The signs are that Russia’s Syria campaign is not going well. As well as a jet, it lost a helicopter, sent to rescue the downed pilots, to a missile fired by the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army. After years of fighting, the official Syrian army is in poor condition. With Russian air support, it is now holding steady, but it has failed to take back much territory. Mr Assad is so steeped in blood that he is a liability for Mr Putin. With him in power, there will never be peace. Mr Hollande should stress that Russia has its own reasons to fight IS. It lost citizens in the bombing of a civilian airliner over Egypt, and home-grown jihadists are even now being radicalised inside Syria.

An alliance against IS may be beyond Mr Hollande’s reach. But he might yet shift priorities—to move IS up the order and to get Turkey and Russia thinking about a settlement. The hope is that, as the morass in Syria deepens and the memory of the Sukhoi fades, Mr Hollande will find that time is on his side.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "No room for manoeuvre"

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