Turkish-Russian Crisis Negatively Affects the People

After the downing of Russian warplane by Turkey in late 2015 changed the route of Turkish-Russian relations.

The diplomatic crisis between Russia and Turkey over the downing of Russian warplane on November 24 caused the wide range of problems.

After several harsh speeches, Russian officials decided to implement sanctions on some specific areas. First of all, the government declared to suspend military relations with Turkey. Russian president Vladimir Putin accused Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on so-called relations between Ankara and terrorist groups in Syria. These developments negatively affected Turkish-Russian relations, and additionally Russia decided to halt visa-free travel for Turks after imposing sanctions on Turkish goods.

Recently, Turkish banks in Russia have been raided by Russian security forces over money laundering claims and some of the Turkish factories face this kind of threats. Turkish trucks which carried vegetables and fruits were sent back from the Russian border.

According to Hurriyet Daily News, the number of Turkish firms which operated in Russia was around 1500 before this crisis, and today the number dramatically decreased because of the pressure of the state.

The current situation negatively affects the daily life of 80,000 Turkish citizens, too.

A Turkish businessman said, “Every week another friend calls to say he’s leaving,” and “It’s become very difficult for Turks to do business here,” Reuters reported.

According to the same report, there is a non-official estimation that approximately 200 Turkish firms have left and most of the others register Russian names as the owner of their companies.

This creates a mutual disadvantage for the countries. According to Azernews report, Turkish export to Russia decreased by 66 percent in January 2016 as compared to the same period in 2015.

20 percent of Moscow’s vegetable imports are from Istanbul, writes Patrick Keddie in his article “An Unhappy New Year for Turkey’s Exporters to Russia” on Al Jazeera. More than $1 billion trade volume faces a big danger.

Danger over money creates distrust among people in the region. Russian sanctions over Turkey are the type of a total war, which affects the life of millions of people and the stability of the region.