Ukraine war has had multilateral effects on geopolitical scenario of the world. One of them is the global polarization forcing nations to make new alliances based on their situation.  It has led European Union, United Kingdom and USA to take side with Ukraine while Iran, Turkey, and China (all from Asia) are overtly or covertly siding with Russia.  The war has further strengthened the European unity and their reliance on USA for their protection under the umbrella of NATO. Russia, on the other hand, escalated its efforts to establish its relationship with other countries on new terms and conditions. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made a special trip to Iran on 19 July 2022 to muster Iran’s support to its war against Ukraine.

The New York Times reported, “He (Putin) met with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who issued a declaration of support for Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine of the kind that even other countries close to Russia have so far stopped short of making.  Mr. Putin also held a three-way summit meeting focusing on Syria with the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, and their Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was also in the summit. Mr. Khamenei’s endorsement of the war went well beyond the much more cautious support offered by another key Russian ally, China, embracing Mr. Putin’s claim that the West had left the Kremlin no choice but to act^[1].”  A war in Europe is now leading Asian countries to form new alliances that can act as a counter-force against the US and European powers.

The new alliances couldn’t hold Iran from warning Turkey against its military attack in northern Syria. Iran and Russia have been staunch supporters of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria during more than a decade of civil war while Turkey has backed armed groups fighting against Mr. Assad and has mounted incursions into northern Syria^[2].

In a press briefing, the Russian President, Vladimir V. Putin, made his position clear on Syrian situation. “As I have said many times and would like to stress once again, the work of this tripartite group – Russia, Turkey and Iran – this joint effort to search for compromises and find these compromises has led to the fact that over 90% of Syria is now under official government control and, as we say in such cases, we have broken the back of international terrorism there. This is a great result of this joint work,” said Mr. Putin answering a question from the press reports.

Turkey’s role in Syria was not a matter of concerns for Iran alone, it has also raised many eye brows in USA and NATO.  In a statement, the US lawmakers said that the threats of a new invasion by Turkey in northern Syria would have “disastrous results,” threatening local operations against the remnants of the Islamic State and exacerbating Syria’s humanitarian crisis. Dana Stroul, a deputy assistant secretary of defense of USA, said, “ISIS is going to take advantage of that campaign^[3].”

Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is a highly skillful politician who knows how and when to play his cards that ensures his national interests to remain secured and intact from the ongoing global crisis emanating from the US and NATO rivalry against Russia. First, he objected to the membership of Sweden and Finland into NATO and later agreed to it when the leaders of these two countries assured him of actions against terrorist organizations and join extradition agreements with Turkey, which wants to prosecute P.K.K. members living in those countries. It paved the way for Turkey to acquire the 40 American F-16 fighter jets that Turkey had requested last fall. In addition to that he went ahead and purchased Russia’s S-400 antiaircraft missile system in defiance of U.S. warnings^[4].

His next move was to bring Russia and Ukraine on one platform and have them agree to unblock Ukrainian grain exports. All these successful moves of Erdogan brought him lots of applauses from the US and NATO leadership and he emerged as a benevolent statesman capable of playing important role in solving global crisis. He is keeping both Russia and its rivals, USA and NATO, reliant on him and he maneuvers his plans very carefully to keep his pivotal position intact and unharmed as the ongoing global game unfolds itself.

While the Ukraine War is being fought in Europe, its impacts are mostly felt in Asia and it keeps creating problems and opportunities for different players within this region. All we can hope is that no disastrous outcome of this war gets spilled over to Asia. The challenges for the Asian leadership are too high and the expectations are that they will keep an eye on every development that takes place in Ukraine to ensure that Asia remains safe and peaceful.

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[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/world/europe/putin-ayatollah-erdogan-summit.html

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/world/europe/iran-warns-turkey-against-new-incursion-into-northern-syria.html

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/us/politics/turkey-nato-ukraine-russia.html

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/us/politics/turkey-nato-ukraine-russia.html