In its periodic bid to be taken as more than just a regional power with an occasionally glorious past, Turkey has just tripped over itself again. It is not simply about queuing to join the BRICS band of nations, but more about the quixotic Turkish role in dousing the flames in the Russia-Ukraine war.

President Erdogan has reaffirmed the need for Russia to relinquish its hold on Crimea. At same time Ankara has rejected anew the reunification of Cyprus while repudiating a new defense roadmap agreement between Cyprus and Washington. 

What this means, essentially, is that while Turkey is ever at the crossroads of two continents, in the international arena it is still serving as a bridge to nowhere. Credit Mr. Erdogan, however, for capably going through the motions.

The cantankerous anti-Zionist is well aware that the world’s gaze is more firmly fixed on Russia and Ukraine than almost anywhere else. So with the fourth annual Crimea Platform underway this week — a parley that aims for the de-occupation of Crimea and its return to Ukraine — Mr Erdogan didn’t miss a beat.

In a video message he sent to the summit, taking place in Latvia, he said that “Our support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence is unwavering. The return of Crimea to Ukraine is a requirement of international law.” To his credit, the top Turk also reiterated that Turkey has never recognized the annexation of the Crimea, which followed a Russian invasion of the strategic peninsula in winter 2014.

At the same time, Mr. Erdogan expects the rest of the world to recognize the rogue Turkish “republic” of northern Cyprus that Turkey created after it invaded the island in the summer of 1974. The area’s puppet leader, Ersin Tatar, said as much on Tuesday, when he told GB News that Cypriot reunification is now “absolutely impossible.” 

He added, not inaccurately, that “we have been governing ourselves as a de facto state for the last 60 years.” Sometimes though, puppets inadvertently make problems for their masters. Mr. Tatar also told the British news channel that all previous peace talks to unify divided Cyprus “failed because the Greek Cypriots are a recognized state in the European Union.”

That is a stunning misread not only of international law but reality. All Cypriots, Greek and Turkish, are technically living in an EU member state — the Republic Cyprus joined the bloc, technically as one state, in May 2004.  However, with 40,000 or more Turkish troops permanently stationed in the north — completely separate from a UN peacekeeping force that monitors an island-wide buffer zone — the chance of talks going anywhere is as likely as Suleiman the Magnificent rising from the dead.

A deadlock over the Cyprus problem is one of the biggest factors keeping Turkey out of the European Union and seeing it cozy up to Moscow on both the economic and political fronts. There is more to it than that, however. The geography almost says it all: draw a straight line from Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea south and eventually it cuts through the heart of Cyprus — already one of the most militarized islands in the world. 

Were President Erdogan to let go of his neo-Ottoman aspirations for a minute, he might see that adopting a more conciliatory approach on Cyprus could spur President Putin to rethink his obdurate stance on Crimea. It does not take a huge leap of the imagination to recognize that if Turkish troops exited northern Cyprus as part of a negotiated settlement to reunify the island, the ravenous Russ might, along with the multiple indignities suffered on account of  robust Ukrainian counterattacks, take the hint. 

In short, there might be less resistance to giving Crimea back to Ukraine as part of a broader, internationally-brokered deal to end the war. None of this would happen overnight, of course. It might never happen, and right now Turkey is not really helping. Its public reaffirmation of Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea is welcome, but stubbornness on Cyprus belies a certain hypocrisy. 

That was only reinforced this week when Ankara lambasted a new bilateral defense cooperation agreement signed Monday by the Republic of Cyprus and America. 

On Wednesday the Turkish foreign ministry responded by stating that “These steps undermine the neutral [American] position towards the island of Cyprus and make it more difficult to reach a just, lasting and sustainable settlement of the Cyprus issue.”

The reality  is that Washington is not neutral, having long supported reunification attempts. President Erdogan’s vision is more than a little myopic — with roads ahead looking rough, the irascible Turk is not the kind of chap you want in the driver’s seat.