Turkey’s acquisition of Russian S-400 air defense systems has snagged any progress in its fraught relationship with the United States, growing into a sort of “mother of all problems” between the two NATO allies. Confusion reigns in Ankara on how to manage the crisis after two years of failed efforts at a solution that would allow Turkey to use the systems while allaying the concerns of its Western partners. The need to satisfy Moscow as well makes it a tall — almost impossible — order.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government never foresaw a crisis on such a scale when Ankara signed the contract with Moscow in April 2017, driven by domestic political calculations and without a proper assessment of geopolitical risks. The full extent of the cost and terms of the deal, including the rights and obligations of the Turkish and Russian sides, remains unknown to the public. In any case, the crisis has an Ankara-Moscow dimension, which is often overlooked as the discussion in the Western media focuses on the crisis’ impact on Turkish-US relations.

The purchase of the S-400s was both a financially costly move and a critical choice bound to affect Turkey’s strategic orientation, alliances and foreign policy decisions for decades to come. Yet the acquisition went ahead without a proper technical review by the general staff, any real parliamentary oversight and a healthy public debate as the pro-government media shouted critics down. Thus, Erdogan’s government alone holds the political responsibility for the economic, diplomatic and security price that Turkey has paid and could pay over the crisis.

Two proposals are being floated in Turkey these days as a way out of the crisis. The first is the so-called Crete model — a reference to the solution of a crisis over the Greek Cypriots’ purchase of S-300 air defense systems from Russia in 1997. Following strong Turkish objections, the systems were never deployed in Cyprus, ending up in storage in Greece’s island of Crete.