Europe | Charlemagne

Is Turkey more trouble to NATO than it is worth?

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is the alliance’s loose cannon

The received wisdom is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has breathed new life, and a new sense of purpose, urgency and unity into nato. Someone forgot to tell Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Over the past month the Turkish president has blocked nato enlargement, warned of a new offensive against American-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria and stoked tensions with Greece, also a member of the alliance. A few pundits, in the West but also in Turkey, are once again debating whether nato and Turkey should part ways. This time, they are not alone. “Leaving nato should be put on the agenda as an alternative,” Devlet Bahceli, leader of a nationalist party in Mr Erdogan’s coalition, recently said. “We did not exist because of nato and we will not perish without nato.”

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “NATO’s loose cannon”

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From the June 18th 2022 edition

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