Ukraine crisis: as US seeks to punish Russia, Middle East allies offer tepid support

The United States is struggling to find support from its major allies in the Middle East as it seeks to punish Russia for invading Ukraine, despite investing heavily in new geopolitical architecture for the region.

Both Washington's closest regional partner Israel and Nato ally Turkey criticised Russia's attack, but their diplomatic reactions have been nuanced and calibrated so as not to appear to be taking the West's side.

Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Thursday condemned the Russian invasion as "a grave violation of the international order". But speaking later that same day, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Isaac Herzog both avoided mentioning Russia in their reactions to the crisis.

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Speaking to the Ynet news website, Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman said Jerusalem had to prioritise the protection of the large Jewish communities in Russia and Ukraine. "The smartest thing we can do is keep a low profile," he said.

Jerusalem's mixed messaging is also a product of its need to work with Moscow in Syria, Israeli media reported.

Tensions between Israel and Russia have grown in recent months. In December, Israeli warplanes twice bombed the Syrian port of Latakia, targeting Iranian weapons shipments to Tehran-backed militias supporting Assad.

Latakia also serves as Russia's only naval base in the Mediterranean, however, and when Russian forces reacted to the Israeli air strikes by jamming aircraft signals, commercial jets using Tel Aviv airport were also affected. Moscow has so far rejected Israel's calls for it to turn off its signal jammers.

Russian and Syrian warplanes have also launched joint air patrols, though this posturing did not prevent Israeli jets from launching attacks on Iranian forces stationed near Damascus.

Turkey, the other regional power with forces deployed in Syria, has been the most bellicose Middle Eastern critic of the invasion of Ukraine.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's response, after meeting his security cabinet in Ankara, was to describe the Russian operation as "unacceptable", saying "we reject it".

But Turkish forces protect a rebel sanctuary in the neighbouring Idlib region of Syria, as part of a 2020 agreement brokered by Russia, with which it conducts joint patrols.

Turkish forces and their Islamist rebel militia allies have also increasingly come under fire from the Syrian regime's Russian-backed forces in recent weeks.

But Erdogan has made no mention of enforcing sanctions against Moscow or attempting to deny the use of the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits to Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Kyiv formally asked Turkey on Thursday to close its airspace and the two strategic waterways - over which it exercises complete sovereignty under the 1936 Montreux Convention - to Russian traffic.

The Montreux Convention is widely interpreted as only allowing Ankara to stop the navies of Russia and seven other signatories from using the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits if they appear poised to attack Turkey.

On Friday, Turkey's foreign minister said the straits could not be closed to Russian warships, due to a clause that allows vessels to return to their home base.

Omer Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, indicated that Ankara also has strong economic motivations for not confronting Moscow over Ukraine.

Already wracked by unstable foreign exchange reserves and inflation which hit a 20-year high of more than 48 per cent last year, the Turkish lira depreciated by more than 5 per cent against the US dollar on Thursday as markets reacted to the invasion.

Celik told the Cumhuriyet newspaper that Turkey "may be stuck in a corner" by US-led Western sanctions against Russia. "Therefore, Turkey needs to act very cautiously," he said.

Despite their caution, Guy Burton, an adjunct professor at Vesalius College in Brussels, said Israel and Turkey were both clearly against the Russian invasion.

"Israel was trying to tread carefully between Russia and Ukraine", he said, indicating as late as last week that it did not want to sell its Iron Dome missile defence system to Ukraine in case it upset the Russians.

"Israel also wanted to avoid confrontation with Russia as it was its gatekeeper to carry out air strikes in Syria against its rivals," Burton said.

Israelis "know who their main partner is", he said.

"While they may push back and against American objectives at times, when Washington puts down a marker, Israel usually responds," Burton said - as happened in 2019 when the US began demanding that Israel limit its economic contacts with China.

The six oil-rich Arab monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), whose members depend on the US to fend off the threat posed by their arch-rival Iran, have not yet reacted to the invasion of Ukraine.

The GCC is led by Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and includes top liquefied natural gas exporter Qatar, recently designated a major non-Nato ally by Washington, partly because it hosts the biggest US base in the Middle East.

Other members include the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which normalised relations with Israel after signing the US-sponsored Abraham Accords in August 2020.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan on Friday to garner the UAE's diplomatic support.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman also called on her Saudi counterpart Waleed El Khereiji.

The US State Department subsequently issued statements saying the officials discussed "a strong international response to support Ukrainian sovereignty through the UN Security Council".

At the time of writing, neither Abu Dhabi nor Riyadh had issued statements about the calls.

The US' Gulf Arab allies are expected to maintain diplomatic neutrality amid the Ukraine conflict because of their policy of staying out of clashes between global powers.

Responding to US pressure to increase oil and LNG supplies to calm the international energy market, the GCC states have already indicated that they have very little spare production capacity.

Another factor in the reticence of Saudi Arabia and the UAE may be the impact that the Ukraine conflict is having on oil prices, Burton said.

"It's now above US$100 per barrel [up from around US$80 in January], which is extremely beneficial to oil producers like Saudi and Abu Dhabi," he said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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