Wednesday's episode of Eastern Express looks at Turkey and its policy towards Russia after its full-scale aggression against Ukraine. After the recent Erdogan-Putin meeting in Astana, the Turkish president announced he had agreed with the Russian dictator on the establishment of a hub for Russian gas trade in Turkey.
More recently, Ankara has refused to recognise Moscow's announced annexation of Ukraine's occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, and has firmly stated that Crimea belongs to Ukraine. Yet, on the other hand, Ankara is conducting normal economic relations and trade with Moscow, disregarding the sanctions imposed on Russia by Western countries.
This episode further covers topics of Russian journalist and TV personality Ksenia Sobchak reportedly leaving Russia to avoid possible arrest, the US administration announcing that it has sanctioned Moldovan oligarchs, 200,000 foreigners applying for a Kazakhstani Individual Identification Number and the early presidential elections to be held in Kazakhstan
To shed more light on these issues, TVP World invited Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum.
