Ankara's Bellicose Rhetoric Doesn't Help Improve Relations With Moscow

Statements made by Turkish leadership regarding the current status of the Black Sea as a "Russian lake" are not helping to improve relations between Moscow and Ankara, according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Earlier this year, Recep Tayyip Erdogan told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that without a ‘visible’ NATO presence, the Black Sea risks becoming a “Russian lake”, in a manner of speaking.

"The statements made by high-ranking officials in Ankara about the ‘necessity of preventing the Black Sea from becoming a Russian lake’ are not doing any good for bilateral relations or stability in the region," Zakharova said in a statement posted on the ministry’s official website.

She also remarked that there's also no sign of Ankara making any meaningful moves regarding the conditions set by Moscow to create "at least a preliminary basis for improving relations with Turkey."

Meanwhile, on June 6 the US Navy destroyer Porter began its 21-day routine patrol of the Black Sea in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve. The deployment drew criticism from Moscow for destabilizing the region.

Relations between Russia and Turkey rapidly deteriorated after a Russian Su-24 bomber was downed in Syrian airspace by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet on November 24, 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated that Russia was willing to resume its relations with Turkey, but Ankara will have to go through all the necessary steps, including an apology and compensation for the incident.