... and injured at least 50. And in January 2021, a
car bombing
in the same Afrin region claimed the lives of six civilians and wounded about 25 others. No one has taken responsibility for the attack, but Ankara blamed the YPG for the explosion.
Neither Turkey’s NATO allies nor most EU countries, which included the PKK in their terrorist lists, had any doubts about its terrorist component. But Ankara’s partners have been less consistent with the PKK affiliates of the KCK. Washington has chosen the Syrian branch ...
... Turkey’s internal problems at the expense of international players and leaving control over the implementation of those enshrined in the
Memorandum of Understanding
arrangements up to Ankara. Finland and Sweden have received a formal invitation to join NATO, but ratification by the member states’ national authorities will now be required, leaving significant room for manipulation by Turkey [
2
].
Another indication of the mitigation of the problem of internal divisions is the text of the new Strategic Concept itself. In its preliminary versions, the lack of internal solidarity, primarily between the US and the EU, was cited as one ...
... era” course and neglect its vital national security interests in Nagorno-Karabakh and Syunik, it will not only risk transforming Armenia into a Turkish client state, as this will also threaten to end Russia’s presence in Transcaucasia, creating a new Turkey-NATO threat on Russia’s southern frontiers. Currently,
NATO
stands a mere 135 kilometers (84 miles) from Peter the Great’s “window to Europe,”
St. Petersburg
. With an active support of the ambitious Ankara, it could soon follow this act by ...
... follow Ankara’s example and learn from its experience in developing relations with Kiev without taking the position of Moscow into consideration.
In this context, it is worth noting a certain incongruence between the approaches of the United States and Turkey’s other NATO allies to its actions in the Caucasus and Ukraine. France could not (and cannot) tolerate Ankara’s unequivocal support for Baku, while the United States has adopted a position of cautious restraint. Washington and Paris are co-chairs of the OSCE ...
... find themselves in close proximity to S-400’s operated by Russian personnel.
The arguments about “collecting intelligence” were obviously contrived, and the United States merely wants to punish the obstinate Turkish leader. For similar reasons, NATO became extremely concerned about the plight of Kurds following Turkey’s armed intervention in the north of Syria, and
initiated a blocking of military-technical cooperation
with Turkey, even though Ankara had regularly conducted anti-Kurdish operations (including operations in adjacent states) in the past. Another ...
... hostile actor and promoter of anti-Indian terrorist activities.
Turkey
Michael Lambert:
Power without Soft Power: China’s Outreach to Central Asia
Turkey’s position in Afghanistan presents many opportunities for the only Islamic-majority member of the NATO alliance. Turkey’s foreign military presence under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been significant with active involvement in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey’s relationship with the United States and other NATO allies has been tense in recent ...
... developments in the Black Sea Region generally agree that acceding to NATO was a good idea. For example, the Turkish political scientist Mitat Çelikpala and his Greek colleague Dimitrios Triantaphyllou
state
that “three of the six littoral states are NATO members (Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria) and two others (Ukraine and Georgia) seek to enhance their relationship with NATO.” At the same time, we would like to note that if Çelikpala and Triantaphyllou support the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine ...
... Cyprus, saw it transferred to Crete. Again, Turkish interests took precedence. Russia does, of course, have its red line: when a resolution on the Annan unification plan was discussed in 2004, Russia vetoed it, since the plan as a whole was essentially NATO- (and Turkey-) friendly.
Russian foreign policy is not as a rule aggressive, such as the US’s and Turkey’s. In the case of its relations with Greece, Moscow is happy to watch Greek-Turkish tensions causing problems for NATO, and influence Turkish foreign ...
... in Congress. On October 11, a resolution criticising the position of the US executive on Turkey and the Kurdish issue was drafted by Democrat Eliot Engel, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair. A similar joint resolution was proposed by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez. Turkey’s unprovoked invasion is described in a resolution proposed by Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. At the same time, Congressmen offered several proposals for sanctions against Turkey. In particular, Senator Lindsey Graham proposed Bill S. 2644,...
... claims that Turkey is aware that its relations with Russia are uneven, especially in military and diplomatic terms, therefore, when and where possible, Ankara would like to counteract Russian dominance through soft-balancing, expanding discussions of NATO–Turkey cooperation, for example, in Georgia or Azerbaijan. Russian military build-up in the Black Sea is also causing concerns in Turkey. This claim can be related to the ongoing efforts of the Turkish government to
increase navy capacities
in territorial ...
