Turkey’s relations with the rest of NATO have deteriorated rapidly over the past year.
Chief Adviser to the President of Turkey, Yalchin Topchu has told local media that Turkey should reconsider its NATO membership. Recently, Turkey’s President Erdogan withdrew troops from a would-be pan-NATO military exercise in Norway after Erdogan’s name along with that of Turkish Republic founder Ataturk, appeared on a poster of “enemies”.
Topchu told journalists in Ankara,
“It is time to reconsider our membership in NATO. We do not need an organisation that displays in every possible way its hostile attitude towards its member. The issue of our presence in that organisation should be urgently considered in the Turkish parliament”.
He continued,
“A traitorously hostile tone sounds in regard to our country and the elected president, it is about the meanness and disgrace shown during the NATO exercises, where the photo of Ataturk and Erdogan’s name were paired with hostile intentions… It’s time to reconsider our membership in NATO. An organisation that shows its hostile attitude to its member in every way”.
Turkey has multiple disagreements with the US led alliance. In many ways, staunch US support of pro-PKK Kurdish militants in Syria has been the biggest of many points of contention between Ankara and Washington.
Yesterday, President Erdogan threatened to remove US radar systems from Turkish soil if the US follows through with its threats not to deliver F-35 fighter jets which Turkey has purchased. Washington has threatened to withdraw delivery because Turkey has purchased Russia’s powerful S-400 missile defence systems.
Turkey’s alienation from the western alliance of which it used to be an enthusiastic member has coincided with the development of increasingly strong relations with Eurasian powers including neighbouring Iran and the Russian Federation.