The Financial Times published an alarming article on November 27 detailing how Turkey’s exports of military-linked goods to Moscow have soared. This should be a wake-up call for the United States and its allies about Turkey’s role in the West’s conflict with Russia.
During the Cold War, Turkey was regarded as a staunch ally, but it was the advent of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in 2002 that led to a marked change in Turkish foreign policy and disengagement from the United States.
In 2009, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu stated that it was the goal of Turkish foreign policy to make the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East together with Turkey the center of world politics once again. Three years later, at an AKP conference, he declared it was the AKP’s mission to create a new world order (nizam-i âlem, the Ottoman concept of Islamic rule). […]
Five years ago, Erdogan’s head of international relations, Ayse Sözen Usluer, stated that Turkey for the last ten to fifteen years had felt no need to choose between the West and the East, or between the United States and Russia. She emphasized Turkey’s strategic importance and maintained there was no axis shift.
There is evidence to the contrary. Turkey and the United States parted company in 2019 with Ankara’s decision to purchase Russia’s S-400 air defense system. This led to Turkey’s removal from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and the imposition of CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) sanctions on Turkey.
Last year, the U.S.-Turkey Strategic Mechanism was launched to paper over the cracks. A deal allowing Turkey to buy forty F-16 fighter jets and seventy-nine modernization kits has been blocked by Congress and is being used by Turkey as a bargaining chip in return for allowing Sweden to join NATO. Läs artikel
