The Duran Podcast - Putin and Erdogan, no grain deal. Turkey closer to BRICS

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Putin and Erdogan, no grain deal. Turkey closer to BRICS

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Ukraine. We can talk about the Putin-Erdawan meeting. I don't think it was a shock. Any surprises from Putin's meeting with Erdogan? I think it was pretty much as most people thought it was going to turn out to be. But Putin did say some interesting things connected to the conflict in Ukraine, as did Shogu. So maybe we want to get into that. But let's, and we can talk a little bit about what's happening on the front, on the front line.

But let's just start off with a summary of the grain deal discussions. Yeah. Because that was the main reason, I think, that Erdogan was there. And then we can get into what I think are the more interesting topics that were discussed and the more interesting statements that were made. Can I just say, I think that you're right in saying that the grain deal discussion was important. because there's been so much attention devoted to it. But I actually think that in some ways it's an importance that has been misunderstood

in the sense that they had to talk about it because Erdogan has invested so much of his own political capital in it. But I don't think that Erdogan actually went there with any expectation that he was going to get Putin to agree to re-enter the great deal. I think he went there actually, intending to talk about lots of other things and lots of important things, which is now becoming clear. Some of them have not been highlighted in the official statements or the press conferences and things of that kind.

But of course, talking about the grain deal gave a excuse, a good reason for this meeting. And it was the kind of topic that the media could basically congregate around. Now, briefly, I mean, Putin basically said, Russia is not re-entering the grain deal. Full stop. That's it. I mean, that's really what he said. He said, you know, in order for us to re-enter the grain deal, the Western powers must do all the things that they did not do. They must reconnect the Russian agricultural back to Swift.

They must lift the sanctions on our food and fertilizer exports. They must facilitate these exports. They must allow. proper patrols of this humanitarian corridor through the Black Sea so that we can be confident that weapons aren't being smuggled into Ukraine that way and that Ukraine doesn't use the corridor to launch attacks upon our shipping. All of those things. He said that before. And then Erdogan says, well, you know, we're going to continue to work with the UN and with the West to try and satisfy all your concerns. And we want the Ukrainians to soften their stance. which is exactly what Erdogan has also said.

So it's essentially just a restatement of positions. But when you put all that aside, if you part that away, there's an awful lot of other things that they were talking about. They were talking about commercial business deals. They seem to be getting on. I mean, you know, all these sort of problems that they had before. They seem to be friends again. So commercial business deals.

The most important thing was just sneaked a little bit in the background, which is, you know, that let's move over to trade in national currencies. Turkey country with huge inflation issues. Russia will not want to import. It's in Turkey's inflation into Russia at the time when, you know, inflation in Turkey is so high. Putin is basically telling Erdogan, hurry up, join the bricks. And then now there's rumours, there's talk that in fact China has actually invited Turkey to apply to join the bricks. And that Erdogan himself has been in contact with Iran and has been asking the Iranians for help in preparing the process to start it. So that's probably what they were actually talking about.

not so much the grain deal. And before I finish on the grain deal, I mean, you know, there's the usual haggle, there's the bribe, you know, always you pay bribes to Erdogan. I don't mean they're personal bribes. But, you know, Turkey gets a million tons of Russian grain, convert it into flour,

lower the prices of food in Turkey itself, especially in Istanbul, where there's important elections coming. Turkey can then export all this flour and all this grain. And, you know, so, you know, you cut Turkey into the... the deal and I think Erdogan is quite happy with that. Yeah, don't you think there was a type of, uh, of catharsis from, from Putin regarding the

grain deal and the statements that he made. I mean, it seems like, you know, he wanted to make those statements. Yes. To the public. And he could have made those statements any time in the past, but I think he wanted Erdogan to be there so he can make those statements about how the U.S., how the West deceived Russia, how the grain wasn't even going to the poorest nations, how they used the Black Sea corridor to launch terrorist attacks.

I mean, he wanted to say these things out loud with Erdogan in the same room. I mean, not that these are things that we didn't know about. We knew about these things. And in different statements over the past month, Putin has mentioned these things. But I think the fact that he was there saying them all out once with Erdogan standing next him. I think it was kind of like you just wanted to clear the air, it seems. I don't know. You're absolutely correct. And the important thing to get is that, of course,

he said that in front of the media in a press conference with Erdogan, as you correctly said, standing there beside him. And Erdogan did not contradict him. He didn't come out and say, you know, what Putin is saying, well, you know, I have a different view. Didn't do that at all. He basically was saying, you know, Putin is right. you know there are these concerns these are real concerns we want to try and get this up and running and sort it out again but these are real concerns and so far they've not been addressed so it was cathartic but it was also politically astute

because essentially he's got erdogan to say implicitly that that is right that you know all these complaints that Putin is making are true complaints Yeah. So how real is it for Turkey to enter bricks? Right. Now, this is going to be a very difficult thing for Turkey to do, because, of course, if Turkey decides to enter bricks, you can say as night follows day, that the US and the EU will say this is incompatible. Certainly with EU membership, well, nobody expects Turkey to join the EU any time. but also probably incompatible with NATO membership as well. Now, technically, that isn't true. I mean, Bricks is not an alliance.

It's an economic and trading bloc and a club of countries. India is also involved in all kinds of security arrangements with the US. It's a member of the Quad, for example. So, you know, Erdogan would be fully entitled to say, well, you know, why shouldn't I join the British? Bricks and remain a member of NATO. But I don't think that's going to cut much ice in Washington and Brussels. Well, they're coming down hard on United Arab Emirates. There was a Wall Street Journal article that came out yesterday and it talked about how the United States and the EU

they're trying to get the UAE, who is a new, a new member of Bricks. They're trying to get the UAE to stop exporting dual-use goods to Russia. And it's just a general appearance that the collective West is now putting a lot of pressure on UAE. It seems like that's the country that they chose for the moment out of all these BRICs, these new BRICS members, and that's going to be the country that they're going to try to pick off first. So, I mean, Turkey would be in a different league altogether if it was to actually move forward with joining BRICS. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And of course Turkey has been exposed to threats from secondary sanctions. I remember all of this some months ago, by the way, and there was very, very heavy pressure on Turkey

when Turkish banks said that they were going to accept the MIR card, and a lot of Turkish banks opted out of it. And then, of course, arrangements were done off, you know, the scene, and you can apparently use the MIRCard in Turkey, but it is not completely straightforward. But, you know, Russian tourists. are able basically to use the Mirkhard. If Turkey joins the BRICS, it can't realistically enforce sanctions against Russia. And that's, I think, one of the fundamental problems. And when the US and the West are coming after the UAE,

to be very clear about this, what they're trying to do is they're trying to use the sanctions tool to undermine BRICS because UAE is now part. of BRICS, because if you're going to have a global trading arrangement, you know, with UAE involved, as part of BRICS, you can't have a trading arrangement, a commercial arrangement, if you're simultaneously imposing the kind of sanctions that the West wants the UAE to do. Now, the UAE government knows that the officials, the Emirates leaders, understand that very well. I'm sure that they will do what all of these countries do. They'll say, oh, yeah, yeah, will the government. agree, we'll go along with some of your sanctions. We won't enter into any official commitments to do, but, you know, we have your, we promise you that we're not going to export dual-use technologies to the Russians, and then they'll

just go on and do exactly what they've been doing up to this point, because that's, I think, what is going to happen. And, of course, the West can't realistically sanction the UAE because it is a critically important. oil producer. Yeah. Putin also said that Ukraine was launching drone attacks towards the pipelines. Yeah. Of the south stream, of the south. I thought that was an interesting statement as well.

Yes. Ukraine is attacking Turkey is basically, or Turkish infrastructure. He's basically what Putin was saying. It's absolutely true. And it's not entirely in use either, because, of course, there were those Russian surveillance ships which were there, keeping an eye on the Turkish. extreme pipelines and things. And Ukraine was launching these drones, these waterborne drones towards those ships. And that was basically what that was all about. It was clearly an attempt to disrupt

Russian surveillance and protection of the Turk Stream pipelines. And there was some speculation that the Ukrainians were doing that in order to gain leverage over Turkey. And that one of the reasons why Erdogan was so accommodating to the Ukrainians, to Zelensky, when Zelenskyy turned up in Turkey, was in order to get the Ukrainians to stop doing that. But the Russians were not pleased, and of course what's happened is that he's now pointedly reminding Erdogan, that he's, you know, Erdogan's Ukrainian friends

are acting contrary to Turkey's economic interests. did turkey did erdogan get what he was promised from biden when he uh when he made the move against russia if you want to call it against russia where he released the azov guys and um he accommodated ukraine and uh and olensky did he get the i mf loan no he hasn't got the i mf 16 deal he's not going to get the f-16 deal um the f-16 deal is not coming his way and the i mfx loan coming his way either. I've discussed, we've discussed, we've talked about Urda once so many times.

The man, he has this compulsion to do this, to act like the scorpion, you know, stinging, was it the frog or I can't remember what it was, the animal. The frog, when they cross the street, he does

this with the Russians all the time. He does this in return from promises from the West, and those promises are never on it, but he goes on doing this and annoys the Russians tremendously when he does it. But he does it because he always wants to bargain. It's, you know, a compulsion that he has. And of course, he also has deep down, I think, a kind of resentment towards the Russians that he doesn't want to feel completely dependent on them. And, you know, he's somewhat intimidated by Putin

who's a much more powerful figure than he is. And he feels sometimes, constantly this need to assert himself against Putin. But I mean, I see no sign of this IMF loan. I don't even know that there's serious discussions about this. And in the meantime, the F-16s, they have to be approved by Congress. And I don't think there's any chance that that's going to happen. I wonder what changes if Turkey enters bricks. Everything.

What changes for Turkey? What changes for Turkey and what changes for the world? that's, I mean, I don't want to say there's no turning back. Obviously, you can, you can leave bricks, I guess, if you want to as well. I don't know. I'm not so familiar with the, with the legalities of entering bricks or anything like that. But, you know, Erdogan's not going to be able to pull these stunts with Russia. If he, if he makes decision to enter bricks, that's, perhaps he could solve his, his monetary issues, maybe. I don't know, maybe, you know, Bricks and China is a way to solve that.

He's tried everything with the Collective West, it seems, and it hasn't been able to solve Turkey's domestic economic issues, but maybe Bricks can help him sort that out, I don't know. But the Collective West is going to really go after Turkey hard as well. I mean, they're not a stranger to coups. No, no, not too. Seven years ago, it wasn't that far for a long ago. There was a coup towards Air Force.

Dhan. So, I mean, I'm just trying to think, you know, a lot would change if Turkey did make that move. A lot would change, I think, with Turkey and its position in the region, in Eurasia, in the Mediterranean, towards Greece, towards Cyprus, towards NATO. I mean, that would be just, it would probably be the biggest geopolitical news that we could possibly get as far as, Bricks enlargement is concerned. And NATO and the shift to a multipolar world, yeah. Absolutely. It's an absolutely transformative event.

I mean, if Turkey joins Bricks, then of course the United States and the collective West will face the first defection that they've ever experienced made by a call member of the Western Alliance. I mean, I think that's an important thing to say. I mean, we've had countries all over the world which have changed to legionses, but they've never been a NATO state. No NATO state has ever turned its back on the West

in that kind of a way that would happen if Turkey were to join the bricks. So, I mean, that would already call into question the whole structure of the collective West. It would mean that, you know, you can actually leave. I mean, up to this point, NATO absolutely has been Hotel California. You can join, but there's no way out. But if Turkey leaves, I mean, it would be an even bigger event, for example, than Britain quitting the EU,

much bigger event than Britain quitting the EU. And of course, it comes with enormous strategic significance. It's got a huge army. It's got a significant industrial base. it controls access for NATO to the Black Sea, so they would lose that. And of course, if you look at it from the other side, it controls access to the eastern Mediterranean

for the Russians. I mean, it would be a massive change in the strategic balance of power. And it would mean a fundamental change in Turkey. It would mean that it would cease to think of itself as a country which was moving towards the West, it would start to rethink of itself again as a Eurasian country. It would come closer to Russia and Iran and China and perhaps even the Middle East. It would change its entire perspective and philosophy and conception of itself if it were to do that.

And it's perhaps still ambitious to expect that. happen but it's not entirely beyond the realm of the possible 10 years ago it would have been beyond the realm of the possible so i mean you know the the fact that we're talking about these things at all already tells us that things are moving and that they're moving in an important way so i mean you know it would be a colossal event it would be far greater event than you know anything else that we've seen up to now you know south africa joining the briggs Ethiopia joining the bricks Egypt, a US ally, joining the Briggs. These are things that the West can absorb.

Even Saudi Arabia, but a core member, a member of NATO and NATO member state, such a big and important NATO member state doing this, it would mean that the Western security architecture was starting to break down. And by the way, it would also mean something else, which is that NATO, which has now aspirations to become a global structure, is going to be once again thrown back onto its Euro-Atlantic core. It would look even more like a Euro-Atlantic alliance than it has up to this point. So it's a huge event.

And as you're talking about Greece, well, it would be a dramatic effect on Greece because, of course, with Turkey in NATO, relations between Greece and Russia would change. relations between Greece and Turkey would change. Everything in the eastern Mediterranean would change in ways that are difficult to assess and fathom. But, you know, let's not go too far ahead of ourselves. We're not there yet. No.

But can you, I mean, can you be in NATO and Bricks at the same time? You know, this reminds me of another, another incident that. happened in 2013-14, about a country that wanted to join the West, but also wanted to join the, let's say, the Eurasian bloc, the Russian world. And that country was Ukraine. 2013-14, Ukraine was in a position where they said, you know, we would like to keep relations with Russian, the Eurasian Union, and we would like to deepen those relations, but we'd also like to join the European Union. Now, at the time, Russia and Putin, I remember Putin was very clear about this. He said, that's fine. You can be in both. But I remember the EU said, no way. It's

either us or it's them. So Russia said you can be in both. That's fine with us. The West said, no. You have to choose either us or them, and we know the rest of the story. Could that be a position where Turkey drifts towards? I mean, would the Bricks be okay with having Turkey in Bricks and being part of NATO? And would NATO then come out and say, no way, you can't be part of Bricks and be part of us? That is exactly what would happen. That is precisely what would happen. NATO would not accept it.

The Bricks would. The Bricks will, I mean, the Bricks says, we are not an alliance. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, you know, it's magic key, if you like. So, you know, India has these security relationships with the United States. It's part of the Quad. It has all kinds of other agreements on security with the United States. It's important weapons of the United States. And China has complex relations with India.

India, but they all say, look, it doesn't matter. You can still be a member of the BRICS. And if NATO, if Turkey wants to join the BRICS and wants to remain a member of NATO, well, the other BRIC states will say, fine, we're not problems. That's not a problem with that. We're a trading system. We're not a block. That's their official position. the Americans and the Europeans will never accept that because as far as their concern, Bricks is a block and they define it as an anti-Western block because they understand that if this block eventually develops and strengthens then that will weaken the West's current dominance

of the world's global trading system. So the West will not. not accept that. And they will do exactly what they said to Ukraine. They will say to Turkey, it's either us or them, it's a binary choice. You have to decide which side you're wrong. And

exactly has happened with Ukraine. I'm afraid there is a risk that that could create problems in Turkey. The difference is that in Ukraine, in the lead up to the 2014 crisis, there was a trickle of support

away from Russia and towards the West. I mean, the West was very effective in building up support for itself in Ukraine. In Turkey, it's been very much in the opposite direction. So, you know, they would be pushing against the stream there. Okay, so let's end the video there and we'll do a second part where we'll talk about with a statement from Putin and Shui Gu

about the big counter-offensive, and we'll also talk about what's going on on the front lines. So the durad.orgas.com. We are on Rumble, odyssey, bitchchute, telegram, and Rackfin and Twitter as well. Derad shop 10% off. Use the code. Good day.