Turkey: American Tragedy

Turkey: American Tragedy

14.07.2010, 18:48

The changing of the foreign-policy course by the Turkish government, headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is an object of serious concern for the West, including the USA in the first place. Turkey has been NATO’s military stronghold in Europe since 1952.

Its army, which is very efficient and second in strength in the North Atlantic Alliance, serves as a cover for NATO’s south-eastern flanks. But today Ankara, which in the entire period, which included the Korean War and Afghanistan War, always took Washington’s side, is now turning its face to the Muslim world. Its changed course has become especially visible in the past few months.

An unprecedented thing is occurring: the Turkish-Israeli relations have fallen to the lowest level. What once was a strategic triangle – meaning the USA- Israel –Turkey is breaking apart. Ankara is now drawing closer to Tehran and HAMAS - the closeness the West hates very much. Now we can speak about the changes in the arrangement of forces in the region. Why has Turkey changed its policy course? What are development forecasts for the future? Such were the questions we put to our experts – the

President of the Institute of Far Eastern studies Yevgeny Satanovsky and an Oriental studies expert Professor Vladimir Sazhin: "Many politicians and politologists believe that the changes in Ankara’s political course are caused by unclear prospects dealing with Turkey’s joining the European Union. If a country lying on both sides of Bosporus begins moving eastward, to a great extent, this is caused by the fact that someone in Europe is pushing it away, thus, destroying its organic link with the West, as the U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said recently".

Orientation towards the West, to a certain extent, makes Ankara’s long-cherished dream - to independently control the situation in the region - unrealizable. But now Turkey is trying to position itself as a regional leader.

And this offers more proof that the world is changing, as the Russian politologist Yevgeny Satanovsky said.

The world is changing. This is no more the world, which was based on the decisions of states, which won the Second World War. The present-day world can live, work, trade, carry out economic development, and fight without the great powers. And Turkey is one of the future centres of independent world forces. In this context, its alliance with Iran, which possibly will not last long, is a strategic priority for Turkey today.

Such a turn of events is not to the USA’s liking. Especially, if we take into account America’s political-economic pressure on Iran, which is clearly visible today. It’s not beneficial for the USA to have Turkey as its ally, knowing perfectly well that it is Iran’s ally too.

Therefore, there’s no doubt that Washington will make attempts to prevent the strengthening of the Turkish-Iranian alliance. However, it is rather doubtful that such a pressure will prove productive enough.

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