Erdogan praises Putin's'special friendship' before of Turkey's vital runoff election.

Turkey has a “special” and growing relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite mounting pressure on Ankara to help bolster Western sanctions against Moscow. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his principal rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, have diverged on a number of foreign policy issues, including diplomacy with the West and Russia. Kilicdaroglu has vowed to repair years of strained diplomacy with the West and recalibrate Ankara’s relationship to Moscow to be “state-driven.” Erdogan has doubled down on his relationship with Putin and believes the West should follow suit. He has accused his rival of seeking to “detach” Turkey from Russia and has emerged as a key powerbroker, adopting a crucial balancing act between the two sides, widely known as “pro-Ukrainian neutrality.” The most important details in this text are the ties between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Vladimir Putin. Erdogan helped broker a key agreement known as the Black Sea Grain Corridor Initiative that unlocked millions of tons of wheat caught up in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, averting a global hunger crisis.

He also helped secure an exchange of prisoners of war between Ukraine and Russia, hosting some liberated Ukrainian POWS in Turkey, and providing Kyiv with arms. Erdogan also tackled another key flashpoint in Turkish tensions with the West: Sweden’s accession to NATO. Turkey has blocked Stockholm’s membership in the alliance, accusing it of harboring militants from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Sweden has refused Turkey’s repeated requests to extradite individuals Ankara describes as terrorists, arguing that the issue can only be decided by Swedish courts. Erdogan also criticized US President Joe Biden for calling him an “autocrat” in his 2020 campaign for the White House.