WASHINGTON, 18 April 2022, (TON): Largely unnoticed in the New York Times report of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s separate phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin is a notably pregnant statement by Ibrahim Kalin, a chief adviser and spokesman for Erdogan.

Kalin said “even though we fully reject the Russian war on Ukraine, the Russian case must be heard, “because after this war, there will have to be a new security architecture established between Russia and the Western bloc.”

What would the new security architecture be? The implication is that some credit must be accorded to a larger Russian sphere of influence.

This is not the view of the United States, and it is not the view of NATO. The Alliance has no intention of rewarding Putin, in language or action, for his brutal attempt to drag Ukraine into the Russian embrace.

However, NATO now must do more than focus on how it is helping the Ukrainians and defending every inch of NATO territory. Now it must say what it requires for European security beyond the end of the current war.