Last week, the United States responded in writing to the letter to which Russia conveyed its request not to include Ukraine in NATO. In this letter, Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said that they did not respond positively to the request and stated that there was no change in NATO's 'open door policy'. Despite the deep antagonism in the diplomacy of this letter, tensions in Ukraine have been slowly declining.
Everyone started to calculate the material and moral costs they would face in the event of a war. President Joe Biden is persistently trying something and says that Russia may invade Ukraine in February. It is either trying to take the lead or trying to pull Russia somewhere with an unknown fiction. Seeing this, Russia drew its cautious tongue to a more careful point. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, against Biden's statements, "If this depends on Russia, there will be no war. We don't want war," he said. Meanwhile, Putin's agreement to come to Turkey at the invitation of President Erdogan is an important development. A NATO member Turkey, saying yes to the invitation of a Turkey with close political and economic relations with Ukraine, shows that Putin is trying to open up space for the stuck diplomacy. In other words, we can say that Putin's Minister, Lavrov, aims to use different ways to convey the truth of his statements to the whole world.
On the other hand, statements about the construction of national unity began to come from Ukraine. The voices coming from Ukraine, which is at the center of the discussion, but which has been given a perception as if it has no will in this process, and even its will does not matter, are full of serious content. It may be misleading to see the statement of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, "Whether we are in NATO or not, we are definitely developing our army, we must protect ourselves" as just a motivational sentence. In addition, Zelensky said, "Let foreign journalists come and see Ukraine. Let them see if there are tanks roaming the streets here. If you are not in Ukraine, such an impression is created. We can say that he is trying to take control of the crisis with the statement 'We do not need such a panic.'"
However, again Zelensky said, “I don't want the issue in Ukraine to be resolved as a result of an agreement between Biden and Putin. Biden reassured me many times yesterday. By saying “Ukraine will decide the fate, present and future of our state”, he actually reveals that they see the risks of acting according to the assurances.
At this point, the first thing to do is for everyone to take a step back. Obstinacy has the potential to plunge the world into chaos, the consequences of which no one can foresee. This fact must be seen very clearly. You know, sometimes there is a stone and when you pull it from where it is, the building collapses to where it is. Ukraine is actually like such a stone. As it is known, we have words that do not count as a fist in a fight and who hit it. The Ukrainian crisis has the power to mobilize even problems that have no direct connection with it. In other words, as we said before, there are many sides that overlap with Syria. Syria was seen as a country of 20 million people and the balances behind it were not taken into account. In the end, Ukraine should not be overlooked by calling it a country of 40 million people.
It doesn't take an expert to speculate that alongside the unstable Middle East, an unstable Eastern Europe won't just affect their own region. Turkey is at the center of these regions. The importance of the Montreux Straits Convention should have been understood in the process. If Montreux is pierced, the Black Sea will be worse than the Mediterranean, and if the Black Sea turns into a ring of fire, Turkey will be at the forefront of the losers.
War is not the last option for this region, it should never be an option, even at the end. War is the last option and armed version of diplomacy. Before Ukraine reaches this stage, a solution must be found and the winner of the process must be unarmed diplomacy.