Guy Verhofstadt says: "Beware of czars bearing gifts." Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in St. Petersburg last week. Vladimir Putin may have eased economic sanctions against Turkey, following the downing of a Russian fighter jet on the Syrian-Turkish border last November. But don't be surprised if the "Turkish delight" that Erdogan brought was not as sweet as Putin expected.

Turkey has been mired in a turmoil that has taken a toll on its foreign and domestic politics, exacerbated by a coup attempt on 15 July. Relationship with both the US and the EU has been frosty, Turkey felt snubbed after being criticised by the West for being heavy-handed with activists, journalists, opponents etc. Erdogan's decision to choose Russia for his first official visit abroad since the failed coup has unnerved Western leaders. The EU's migrant deal with Turkey is on the verge of falling apart, and the US is under pressure to extradite the self-exiled Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey blames for the coup.

Even if Putin thought this visit could offer him "an opportunity to convince Erdoğan to 'turn east' and join Russia, as well as China and the countries of Central Asia, in a kind of brotherhood of autocracies," it is quite unlikely that the Turkish president was eager "to take up the offer." The author maintains that "whatever economic benefits Russia can offer are dwarfed by those provided by the EU – a critical trade and business partner that has been indispensable in driving Turkey’s modernization." Besides Erdogan knows Putin's reputation for being "an untrustworthy partner." While mending fences with him would bring back Russian tourists and allow Turkey to export agricultural products and construction services to Russia again, Erdogan also knows that he "cannot afford to abandon his country’s ties with the West."

It's most likely that Erdogan's visit was not a vengeful response to a perceived lack of visible and credible Western support after the coup, nor was it an appreciation of Putin's swift support. Erdogan must be smugly happy to keep the West worrying. The author says: "If he is genuinely seeking to deepen Turkey’s relationship with Russia, at the expense of its ties with the EU and the US, as some warn, this would amount to a fundamental geopolitical realignment." Indeed, it delights Putin to see a "deterioration of Turkey’s relations with its Western partners." Turkey is after all a key NATO power. But realpolitik prevails at the end of the day.

The two states are expected to resume shelved projects like the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, and a nuclear power plant construction etc. In the last two years Erdogan had alienated himself from the West, due to spillover effects in Iraq and Syria, as well as domestic grivances. As Turkey's security situation spiralled out of control, grappling with terror attacks by ISIS and Kurdish militants, Erdogan has come to realise that he needs an exit strategy, as much as Putin looks for an "escape route" in Syria. The Kremlin has intervened militarily last November to prop up the Assad regime. Putin needs to win in Syria, to boost his international standing. The author believes, Putin "needs to move Erdoğan, who has been supplying arms and support to the Sunni rebels whom the Russian air force has been hunting, into his camp." It's true. But Erdogan has since the start of the civil war been demanding for regime change in Syria and supporting various rebel groups to topple Assad. Putin ought to know that Erdogan sees Turkey's relationship with the Sunni Arab world as more important than with Russia.

The author advises EU leaders to seek "a sustained dialogue" with Turkey, rather than allowing Erdoğan "to use his relationship with Putin to manipulate his NATO allies." While condemning Turkey for a possible re-introduction of death penalty, the West and the EU must prevent him from shifting further "toward autocracy. They must make him understand that his current path leads away from EU membership and could cost Turkey some of the economic ties on which it depends."

Indeed, Erdogan needs to decide, whether to renew "his country’s commitment to a close partnership with the EU, with all of the prosperity that this would entail," or to continue "to push Turkey toward a future of despotism and isolation, in which he would receive the occasional comforting phone call from the Kremlin – but little else."