Turkey’s foreign minister has warned that an “expanding war of destruction” could cause Russia to use nuclear weapons as “the last option available to it”.

Hakan Fidan said that during a recent visit to Moscow, the Turkish delegation was close to raising the issue in talks with their counterparts because  the “public is now demanding such a thing.”

“We also told the Westerners of this [concern over nuclear use], and the Westerners know it,” Fidan added in an August 8 appearance on the Anadolu Editor’s Desk programme of Turkish official news service Anadolu Agency.

Warning that “everything that it was said could not happen [in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict] is happening”, Fidan observed that the war, which ignited in February 2022, had spread beyond the battlefield and was now having severe impacts inside Russia. It was, he said, expanding geographically and becoming more extensive in terms of targets and methods, and the international community must step in to stop the fighting.

“But where no one makes concessions, the war continues with growing violence until it creates its own area for concessions. Unfortunately, this is what we are witnessing,” he said.

Call for Black Sea attacks "moratorium"

During the discussion on the show, Fidan called for a “moratorium” on attacks by Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea following a series of strikes on civilian ships there. “The conflict has spread across the whole Black Sea,” he said. “To begin with, they targeted the ports and the military ships. Now, they are attacking all commercial shipping without distinction,” he added, noting vessels belonging to Turkey or flying the Turkish flag were among those targeted.

Fidan added that it seemed the two sides in the war seem to be waiting until they have completely exhausted each other before embracing the mentality of “now let’s sit around a table and make peace”, and with another reference to Russia’s nuclear arsenal, he cautioned: “When this destruction, this attrition on the front, turns into attrition behind the front, the issue is no longer about whether you win or lose a war or a battle on a front; it becomes an issue of whether you exist as a nation. Then you use whatever last means you have at your disposal.”

Fidan also referred to how some parties believe ending the conflict under current conditions would cost them more than allowing it to continue. This, he said, was among the reasons they remain unwilling to bring the war to an end.

In June, Reuters reported that prominent Russian nationalist figures had publicly urged President Vladimir Putin to abandon diplomacy with the US and consider more drastic military measures, including the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons. Their calls came after a series of successful Ukrainian long-range strikes inside Russia.

Though a Nato member, Turkey, as a Black Sea neighbour of both Ukraine and Russia, attempts to largely steer a path of neutrality in the conflict, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan periodically offering to revive his previous role as an active mediator hosting peace talks attended by Kyiv and Moscow. However, Turkey does sometimes go ahead with notable arms sales to Ukraine and this weekend caused some surprise by agreeing a weapons deal that will see 70 M39 ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles, 12 M270 multiple-launch rocket systems and tens of thousands of cluster munitions from Turkish stockpiles sold to the Ukrainians. 

At the end of June, IntelliNews published a comment piece, headlined "Steadily but surely, Erdogan has broken with Putin."