an air campaign before it was brought down the plane at the center of the dispute had been bombing antiassad rebels supported by turkey analysts said neither country had much interest in prolonging the dispute already under pressure at home from a wave of terrorist attacks and a faltering economy that has been hit by a sharp drop in tourism and now at odds with his western allies over a crackdown since the coup erdogan is eager to mend fences with russia ostracized over the ukraine crisis russia likewise has little to gain in treating turkey as hostile theyre both in the situation where they need friends philip hanson a russia analyst at chatham house an independent policy institute based in london said why the us and eu have cause for concern the detente is likely to worry the united states and the european union which is dependent on turkeys cooperation over the syrian crisis and in containing the flow of refugees to europe turkey has attacked western leaders for their lukewarm condemnations of the coup while they have expressed concern about repressions that have followed including thousands of arrests erdogan himself has blamed the july 15 coup on usbased cleric fethullah gulen and turkish media has suggested the united states may have known of it in advance some observers said russia may be seizing on these tensions putin was the first leader to call erdogan after the coup attempt something erdogan thanked him for today putin has an interest in buttering up a nato member which is practically now at odds with the eu hanson said even some russians caught off guard the rapprochement has caused some discomfort among russians a caller survey today by the radio station ekho moskvi found 64 percent of listeners were unhappy putin had made peace with erdogan one of the shows contributors andrei petrovich acknowledged he had some cognitive dissonance accepting that erdogan was now a friend but said in general he was content that were friends with the turkish people again pleases me overall he said turkey has warm seas good products and tasty tomatoes