Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, image via Presidential Executive Office, KremlinBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 491, June 9, 2017
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Discounting the sincerity of Turkish President Erdoğan’s fiercely anti-western rhetoric ahead of the April 16 referendum is akin to disregarding bitter facts about once staunch NATO ally Turkey. NATO’s deepening “Turkey problem” is contained in the country’s Islamist ideology, conspicuous “un-likemindedness”, and democratic anomalies, which stand against NATO’s founding values of safeguarding freedom and the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and rule of law.
Turkey-optimists in the western world tend to minimize President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s explosively chauvinistic, anti-western rhetoric before …read more
Turkey: NATO’s Odd One Out
