The United States Needs to Play Hardball With Turkey

Excerpt

Turkey and the United States have been treaty allies since Ankara joined the trans-Atlantic alliance in 1952 by formally becoming a member of NATO. Over the ensuing 70 years, Turkey’s bilateral relationship with the United States has been through its fair share of ups and downs. In the mid-1960s, the relationship was rocked by the secret U.S. deal with the Soviet Union to withdraw Jupiter missiles from Turkey during the Cuban missile crisis and former U.S. President  Lyndon B. Johnson’s letter threatening not to defend Turkey over Cyprus.

Later differences over Vietnam created an anti-American backlash in Turkish public opinion. In the mid-1970s, the Turkish invasion and occupation of Northern Cyprus led to a congressionally imposed arms embargo and subsequent limits on U.S. arms exports to Turkey. Despite these periodic difficulties, a common threat perception about the dangers that Moscow posed to European and global security helped maintain a strong government-to-government relationship during the Cold War.

Eric S. Edelman, counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, and Sinan Ciddi, an associate professor of national security studies at Marine Corps University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.