Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010 Pointer/Gordon/Watts/Samuels Turkey Neg

Link (Hurts Turkey-US, Helps Turkey-Russo)

Russia and Turkey today share much deeper understanding of geopolitical issues. After the intrusion of the USA in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the increase of the American military presence in the Eastern and Southern Europe, both states demonstrate obvious anti-American shift in their policy. Turkey aspires to enter the EU with its aversion to "US Hegemony", while Russia tries to strengthen ties with France and Germany – the principal conductors of the anti-American policy in Europe. Russia is extremely concerned about the loss of influence in Ukraine and Georgia, and Turkey is worried by the attempts to restrain its presence in the Balkans. Both countries emphasize their "Eurasian nature" (this phrase belongs to the ambassador of Russia in Turkey Alexander Lebedev), are dissatisfied with their minor role in the world, and look for the new allies in Asia, approaching Iran, China and India. Relations between Ankara and Damascus improved to a great extent after the Turkish Justice and Development Party came to power Kremlin also revives its "special relations" with the Syrian regime in economic and military sphere. Both Turkey and Russia refused to support the US military operation in Iraq in 2003. Growing concurrence of interests between Turkey and Russia leads to the signing, in 2001 in New York, of the "Eurasian cooperation agreement". Ankara in a pointed manner stays out of the US and NATO attempts to "entrench" on the Russian borders. In return Russia supports Turkish position on Cyprus. Frank anti-American moods dominate in the intellectual and political elite of both countries ("Edinaya Rossiya" - United Russia and Turkish Justice and Development Party). Both countries gradually chill off the cooperation with Israel – the main US ally in the Middle East, while simultaneously building partnership with Israel's sworn enemy - Syria. Both Ankara and Moscow indefatigably repeat that they "aspire only to defend their national interests".  In the ''real politic'' it is expressed by the attempts to regain influence, which both countries possessed throughout the blossoming era of the empires: the Russian - the Soviet and the Ottoman. With regard of the aforesaid, there is a tendency between the parties to coordinate the opposition to Washington and to create the Eurasian alignment to ''counterbalance'' the American "Atlantism". 

One cannot fail to notice that Russian planners view the Caucasus Pact blueprint in general and Russia-Turkey relations in particular through the prism of a zero-sum game with the Americans. As the influential Kommersant newspaper put it in a recent commentary, the most important feature of the CSCP is that it “will allow Moscow and Ankara to strengthen their positions in the Caucasus thereby weakening Washington’s influence in the region.”