Do we really want Turkey as a NATO ally?

AuthorSchindler, Sol

The time will eventually come when a few unpolished voices will raise the title question. The answer will come from a group far larger than the questioners, and with a rational explanation that In these perilous times (are there any other?) we need every nation in the neighborhood to join us. Geographically Turkey is a dominant figure in the Middle East, it has one of the largest armies there with a successful combat experience of centuries. After WWII in which it remained resolutely neutral it joined the UN and sent a thousand man military unit, which was replaced yearly, to participate in the Korean War. The troops performed bravely and competently and were commended by both our media and military. Turkey then joined NATO and applied for admission to the European Union, which the United States has strongly endorsed, but approval has been dilatory in coming because of Turkey's suppression of civil liberties. Even so, the the political relationship between Turkey and the United States had been warm for years.

When in 1964 Britain promised independence to Cyprus a strong Greek element on the island vowed enosis, or unification with Mother Greece. This alarmed the Turks sufficiently for them to prepare an invasion force ready to protect the Turkish minority on the island. Lyndon Johnson lost no time in sending a diplomatically polite but strongly worded letter informing the Turkish government that such action could start a war with Greece and was not allowable under NATO rules. The Turks desisted, and Archbishop Makarios assumed control of a united Cyprus. He reigned for ten years until a coup by another group of enosis advocates overthrew him. The American president then was Richard Nixon who was so embroiled in the Watergate mess that he could do nothing except resign a month later. The Turks sent a small exploratory force to Cyprus which was so successful that a larger invasion force followed seizing one third of the island. Today the same situation exists; One third of the island is governed by a presumed independent Turkish republic, the remainder by a Greek Cypriot administration. Needless to say relations between Turkey and the Cypriot Republic have never been warm but the imposing presence of the United States with its formidable Sixth fleet kept things reasonably peaceful.

In 2003 Recep Tayip Erdogan became Prime Minister of Turkey marking the beginning of what might be called a reaction to the Western influences that Kemal Ataturk...

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