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WSJ: At Best, It Seems Turkey Will Be An Unreliable Partner

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  • WSJ: At Best, It Seems Turkey Will Be An Unreliable Partner

    WSJ: AT BEST, IT SEEMS TURKEY WILL BE AN UNRELIABLE PARTNER

    PanARMENIAN.Net
    06.11.2009 19:20 GMT+04:00

    /PanARMENIAN.Net/ The European Union has long debated the merits of
    Turkish EU membership. But now, nearly a decade after Islamists took
    the reins of power in Ankara, the central question is no longer
    whether Turkey should be integrated into Europe's economic and
    political structure, but rather whether Turkey should remain a part
    of the Western defense structure, The Wall Street Journal's David
    Schenker says in an article titled A NATO without Turkey?

    According to author, "recent developments suggest that while Turkey's
    military leadership remains committed to the state's secular, Western
    orientation and the defining principles of the North Atlantic Treaty
    Organization, the civilian Islamist government led by the Justice
    and Development Party (AKP) seems to have different ideas. Ankara
    is increasingly pursuing illiberal policies at home, for instance
    by attacking independent media, while aligning itself with militant,
    anti-western Middle East regimes abroad."

    "The latest demonstration of Ankara's political shift was its
    cancellation last month of Israel's long-standing participation in NATO
    military exercises in Turkey. Even worse, on the same day Israel was
    disinvited, Turkey announced imminent military exercises with Syria,
    a member of the U.S. list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism."

    These developments came just weeks after Ankara and Damascus
    established a "senior strategic cooperation council." These
    developments could signal the beginning of the end of Turkey's close
    military and economic cooperation with the Jewish state. While it's
    still too early to write Turkey out of NATO, in the not so distant
    future, the alliance will reach a decision point. In 2014, NATO's next
    generation fighter plane, the Joint Strike Fighter, will be delivered.

    Given the direction of Turkish politics, serious questions must
    be asked about whether the Islamist government in Ankara can be
    trusted with the highly advanced technology. It's time that NATO
    start thinking about a worst case scenario in Turkey. For even if
    the increasingly Islamist state remains a NATO partner, at best,
    it seems Turkey will be an unreliable partner. Since the 1930s,
    the country has been a model of modernization and moderation in the
    Middle East. But absent a remarkable turnaround, it would appear that
    the West is losing Turkey. Should this occur, it would constitute
    the most dramatic development in the region since the 1979 Islamic
    Revolution in Iran," says the article.
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