At BRICS Summit, One of Putin’s Guests Stands Out: Turkey’s President

President Vladimir V. Putin, hoping to prove he is not the pariah that the West has tried to make him, this week welcomed leaders from China, India and Iran, among other nations. Then, there was the NATO member.

Greeting world leaders this week in western Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin has rolled out a red-carpet welcome in his pursuit of partners, like China and Iran, interested in ending U.S. dominance over the international financial system.

But one guest among the dozens of leaders present was not like the others.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who arrived in the Russian city of Kazan on Wednesday, was the only leader of a NATO country to take part in the meetings, known as the BRICS summit.

He addressed Mr. Putin as his “dear friend,” a term of endearment he has used repeatedly for the Russian leader and a sign of Mr. Erdogan’s longstanding effort to position Turkey as a critical player in a world of rivals — to the occasional frustration of his NATO allies.

Mr. Erdogan’s visit was also a feather in Mr. Putin’s cap, analysts said, as he seeks to prove that he is far from the global pariah the West has tried to make him into since he launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Mr. Putin asserted on Wednesday that a shift toward “a multipolar world order” had already begun, saying that an “irreversible process” was underway.

NATO is vilified in Russia and by many BRICS members, whose leaders frequently criticize the alliance. (BRICS stands for the group’s founding members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.) To have Mr. Erdogan, the leader of a longtime NATO member country, express interest in closer relations with the growing bloc underscored the widening circle Mr. Putin is trying to gather around himself, experts said.

Their meeting came as U.S. officials said North Korea had sent troops to Russia to join the fight in Ukraine, another sign that Moscow — which once joined in sanctions against North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions — is drawing support from a diverse array of nations.

“No. 1 for Putin is an opportunity to present Russia as not isolated,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “The BRICS agenda itself is pretty shallow,” he continued, referring to the declaration adopted by the bloc’s leaders after a plenary meeting. “Not that much has been achieved. But the sheer optics and the picture is important.”

Mr. Putin did not attend last year’s BRICS summit, and instead spoke via a recorded video message, because he is wanted for war crimes under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. The 2023 summit was held in South Africa, which is a party to the treaty that created the court and which would have been obliged to arrest him if he had traveled there.

For Mr. Putin to be hosting a platform for so many leaders to meet each other was also a victory for the Kremlin, Mr. Gabuev said. President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India met officially for the first time in more than five years on the margins of the Kazan summit.

“The fact Xi and Modi meet and it seems to be a calm, normal meeting in Russia, it also seems beneficial. He can pocket that,” Mr. Gabuev said of Mr. Putin. “He was not an intermediary, but the fact that they met there and not somewhere else is telling.”

Turkey’s presence also highlights how many countries are trying to balance their relationship among several competing powers.

The Kremlin has welcomed Mr. Erdogan’s increased engagement with the bloc, saying in September that Turkey had expressed an interest in joining it. Turkish officials have remained circumspect about their intentions, although Mr. Erdogan expressed a wish to “develop our relationship with the BRICS” in a speech Tuesday for members of his party.

“I hope Kazan summit will be a conduit to that,” he added.

Analysts say that Mr. Erdogan’s visit was emblematic of his years of hedging between East and West. The war in Ukraine, especially, has highlighted that stance: Turkey remains a strategic partner in NATO and sells powerful weapons to Ukraine, but has refused to join Western sanctions on Moscow and has increased trade with Russia.

“Ankara believes the U.S.-led world order is in decline and wants to survive in a multipolar world by having a foot in each camp,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow focused on Turkey at the Brookings Institution. “It wants to stay in NATO and trade with BRICS — and the world is so fragmented right now that it can do so.”

Both Turkey and Russia have much to gain from the meetings in Kazan, he said.

“Erdogan and Putin need one another for different reasons and BRICS is a good cover for bilateral talks,” said Ms. Aydintasbas. “This is a complicated relationship and certainly not a marriage. Turkey and Russia are simultaneously friends and rivals and the way they manage that balance is through Erdogan’s personal relationship with Putin.”

Mr. Erdogan helped Kyiv and Moscow reach a deal in 2022 enabling Ukraine to continue exporting grain through its Black Sea ports. Turkey has also been instrumental in negotiating prisoner swaps between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia, Germany and the United States.

Mr. Erdogan may be looking for investments from BRICS members to boost Turkey’s ailing economy, said Kerim Has, an independent analyst of Turkish-Russian relations based in Moscow.

“Investments from Western countries are not enough and it is important for Erdogan to reach investor countries like China and India,” he said, adding that Mr. Erdogan may also want to improve relations with BRICS members in the Middle East.

And finally, Mr. Has said, Mr. Erdogan may have calculated that BRICS has become a bloc that he can’t ignore.

“It is as if there is a train that should be caught,” Mr. Has said. “If he is late for it, it would be more difficult to become a member.”

He may already be late.

Founding members of the bloc, like Russia and China, have been keen to expand the group, which this year added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates as full members. However, other founding members, like Brazil, have sought to set clear criteria for newcomers or introduce a second tier of membership.

Even if he does not receive an invitation for full membership, Mr. Erdogan wants to “spook” Turkey’s Western allies enough for a reset in relations with the West, said Ms. Aydintasbas. “Erdogan wants a better geopolitical deal with the West, and BRICS can be a useful instrument in triggering that.”

A crisis at home, which Turkish officials called a terrorist attack, forced Mr. Erdogan to cut his trip short on Wednesday, Russian officials said. But he left the summit amid celebrations: Mr. Putin presiding over a gala toast, hailing the other leaders among clinking glasses and prodigious flower arrangements.

Safak Timur and Ben Hubbard contributed reporting from Istanbul.