[LINK] Luke Coffey at Al Jazeera on Russia and Turkey

[rfmcdonald]

Luke Coffey's opinion piece at Al Jazeera places the current breakdown in Russia-Turkey relations in the context of generally intense competition between the two post-imperial (?) countries.

The West might view recent events between Russia and Turkey as a new phenomenon, but this fails to take into account the complex and fraught relationship between the countries.

The downing of the Russian jet is simply the latest drama in a saga that has been playing out since the middle of the 16th century.

In one form or another, Russia has driven Turkish foreign and defence policy for centuries. Since 1568, Turkey and Russia have been to war 12 times. At least nine of the occasions have been over Crimea - which Russia illegally annexed last year.

Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire have contested regions in the Black Sea, the South Caucasus and the Balkans for centuries.

In 1772, Russian troops raided and briefly occupied Ottoman territory in the Levant. Even during World War I, Russian troops got within 160 kilometres of Ottoman-controlled Baghdad. The ensuing friction led to much bloodshed.

After World War II, Joseph Stalin's designs on Turkey's Eastern Anatolia Region and Soviet Russia's wish to control the Turkish Straits were what originally drove Turkey into NATO's arms.