This worrisome trend as far as Ankara was concerned reached its zenith with the unexpected success in the last parliamentary elections of the oddly named Liberal Democratic Party led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a man the world has come to know as a charlatan, and a potentially dangerous one. It seems now that the Communists in their present form are not immune to the same kind of threatening jargon aimed at Turkey that Zhirinovsky has been prone to, even if nationalism and communism are supposed to be diametrically opposed ideologies. The leader of the Communist Party, Gennanady Zyuganov, in a pre-election interview with the mass circulation Turkish daily Hurriyet, showed his true colours when he, like so many Russian nationalists, accused Ankara of interfering in his country's affairs in the Caucasus and warned that this would backfire on Turkey in a very serious manner. The situation is no different to private Russian citizens who as mercenaries have rushed to the aid of their Slavic brethren, be this in Bosnia, Croatia or elsewhere. Turkey's need to get on well with it.
Today there are problems between Turkey and Russia that are potentially serious and disruptive.
These are centered around issues such as the Chechen crisis, Caspian oil, the vying for influence in the Caucasus and the eastern Black Sea region, Ankara's desire to increase its control over the straits for safety and environmental reasons and so on. At the present time the victory of the Russian Communists is relative. Although they will clearly hold a firm grip on the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, and although they will be in close contact with Zhirinovsky's party, which came out second in last Sunday's elections, the real power still rests with the president and his appointed prime minister. What is worrying planners in Ankara is that the swing to the Communists and leaders such as Zhirinovsky clearly highlights a deep disappointment in Russian society with the Western-oriented reformists. Given that there are presidential elections in the country planned for next June, Turkish officials are wondering how this disappointment will translate then and whether it will produces a hard-line president who would, unlike the Communists in the Duma today, wield real power.