The Syria factor in Turkey-Russia relations from 2000 to present

In the historical process, mutual competition and conflict in the Turkey-Russia relations moved away from the environment of competition and conflict, and turned into a multi-faceted cooperation after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the USSR. Since the 2000s, political economic, energy, security and cultural relations between Turkey and Russia have shown a steady growth. Without a doubt, the leaders of the two countries have made a serious contribution to the developing relations between Turkey and Russia. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's President Vladimir Putin demonstrate a great deal of effort to improve their bilateral relations. The Arab Spring, which started in Tunisia in 2010 and expanded rapidly throughout the Middle East, spread to Syria in 2011 and caused a global crisis. After the outbreak of civil war in Syria, Turkey and Russia's policies in the region have come to a conflict; With the increase of Russia's military presence in Syria, the relations between Turkey and Russia have started to tense up and dragged into a serious crisis after the crash of the Russian jet. After this incident, Russia has applied severe sanctions on Turkey and the relations have come to an almost breaking point. Although the relations started to normalize after the meeting of the leaders of the two countries on August 9, 2016, disagreements about Syria still continue to this day. Today, despite the improvement of the relations between the two countries, disagreements continue on the issue of Bashar Assad and PYD / YPG. In this context, in terms of the medium and long term development of Turkey-Russia relations, the issue of Syria could be considered to be determinative. The tension in the Turkey-Syria relations remained from the time when Syria gained independence in 1946 to the time when Adana Agrement was signed in 1998. The relations, which started to normalize between Turkey and Syria in 1998, have been completely severed as of 2011 with the deepening of the civil war. In this dissertation, Turkey and Russia's implemented policies and their approach to the Syrian crisis, which started in 2011 and has come until today, will be discussed, and the two countries' point of views on the subject of Syria will try to be explained. Key Words: Turkey, Russia, Syria, the Arab Spring, Syrian Civil War, Turkey-Russia relations, Turkey-Syria relations, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad