Thread by @kwasylewsky

It will be really hard to build a strong relationship between #Poland and #Turkey, if the latter chooses to stay indifferent to the events on Polish-Belarusian border.

While there may be a genuine will to enhance partnership on the side of decision-makers, the rationale for

this may be harder and harder to explain to the public. Looking at Twitter (yup, I know this is not the best survey company), I can see two patterns of reaction (and here I am not speaking of anonymous accounts which are likely trolls): first is a growing outrage that our treaty

ally seems to be doing nothing to stop the migrants flow by limiting the number of flights from Istanbul to Minsk, second is along the lines of "ha, I told you that this is not a reliable partner".

Moreover, more and more Polish politicians seem to be suggesting that third

countries airlines, that means also Turkish Airlines, should be sanctioned for contributing to the misery on our border. I have no doubts that if that happens, Turkey will take note of this, which will also impact the bilateral relationship, even though this will be 🇪🇺 decision

Let's now move away from speculations back to the analytical front: no matter what the public opinion feels/says, there will be a lesson learned for Polish foreign policy. And since this is the biggest crisis on the Polish border since the 1989, the lesson may be well

remembered, basically speaking, it may impact Poland's strategic culture. When it comes to short-term perspective, the lesson may be that being proactive towards Turkey is not enough to assure that the country will be more respectful towards Poland's security interests. Mind you

that making Turkey more willing to recognise Poland's security interests was basically the main goal of Polish foreign policy towards 🇹🇷 in the last two+ years. When it comes to longer-term perspective, the lesson may be that the only way to have an influence on Turkey is through

the EU, which may mean that Poland will be another country instrumentalising its support for the EU-Turkey cooperation for its own good. This does not bode well for the future of Polish-Turkish relations, since up to now every Polish government has unconditionally supported

Turkey's EU bid or - more recently- the modernisation of the Customs Union.

There is still time to limit the impact of events on Polish-Belarusian border on the relationship between Poland and Turkey. Yet, it requires decisive actions on Turkey's side. The Turks may think that

the drone sale or sending F-16 to Malbork was enough to support Poland in this tough situation. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Sorry for being a bit repetitive, but I really want this to resonate - this is the biggest security crisis in Poland's recent history. If our allies want to

be seen as supportive, they can only assure this by going all in for Poland.

I really hope this is what happens in the near future and that thanks to this Poland and Turkey will have another great story to support their relationship which - who knows - may one day even replace

a really great but a little bit hackneyed story about an ambassador from Lechistan.

Polish Prime Minister @MorawieckiM today: "We can see fully synchronised actions - Turkey's actions with Belarus and Russia. We are worried, we do not like this. Unfortunately, our help to Turkey turned out to be one-sided favour":

https://twitter.com/mswierczynski1/status/1458166479266926600?t=tR62eiPIRayLcHXjZFZs9A&s=19