MOSCOW, September 21. /TASS/. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is unlikely to go any farther than protocol statements in support of Ukraine’s claims to Crimea, because he will not dare put at risk the mending relations with Russia, the first deputy chairman of the Federation Council’s defense and security committee, Franz Klintsevich, told the media on Wednesday.
Earlier on Wednesday the Ukrainian presidential press-service said that Erdogan at a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Pyotr Poroshenko on the sidelines of the 71st UN General Assembly session in New York reaffirmed Ankara’s invariable support for Kiev on the issue of Crimea’s territorial affiliation. The press-service said that "the resumption of the dialog with Russia will not influence Turkey’s stance."
"It goes without saying that Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not go any farther than protocol statements regarding support for Ukraine. He is perfectly aware what risks he might be taking should he act otherwise: Russian-Turkish relations have just begun to mend," Klintsevich said.
"But words are certainly not just meaningless sounds," he said. "We’ve seen another confirmation that our ‘friendship’ with Turkey has certain limits and is rather abstract," Klintsevich said, adding he was certain that the Russian Foreign Ministry had certainly taken note of Erdogan’s statement to have made the proper conclusions.