NATO Should Suspend Turkey’s Membership – The Guardian
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – A commentary piece in The Guardian argues Turkey’s usefulness to NATO is overblown, and its authoritarian leader needs to be reeled in if cooperation is to continue.
“Turkey’s reliability and usefulness as a trusted western ally is almost at an end […] is it time to admit that two-faced Recep Tayyip Erdogan is no friend of the west – and punish him accordingly?,” asks Simon Tisdal, a political analyst at the UK paper.
Tisdal decries Turkey’s derailing of Western policy. Erdogan currently holds Sweden and Finland’s bids for NATO accession hostage over the extradition of a handful of so-called Kurdish “terrorists”. He also threatens US policy in northern Syria. Both stem from Erdogan’s “obsessive war against the Kurds,” Tisdal argues.
Far from standing with NATO allies, Erdogan has also profited from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by capturing Russian exports (trade between the two increased by 200% in the six months after the invasion) and positioning itself as a neutral mediator. Despite repeated US calls to contrary, Erdogan is seeking to normalise relations with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
But this is not all. “If Erdoğan’s sickening schmoozing of Putin, double-dealing over Ukraine, neo-Ottoman overreaching and on-off aggression towards fellow NATO member Greece are not sufficient proof of bad faith, then consider his other war – on his country’s democracy,” Tisdal warns.
Here, too, Erdogan’s “long-running anti-Kurdish vendetta” has come to the fore, as the pro-Kurdish HDP party is under threat of closure before the coming May 14 general elections. The HDP’s leader – imprisoned since 2016 – may soon be joined by the main contender of the CHP, Turkey’s largest opposition party, who is also facing bogus charges.
Tisdal says personal sanctions on Erdogan and freezing EU accession talks are in order. The US and NATO need to “let go of old, discredited thinking” about the indispensability of Turkey to the West. “Welcome Sweden and Finland into the alliance via a vote of all 30 members; and suspend Turkey’s membership.”
These measures should be in place until Turkey’s leadership decides to return to a set of values closer to NATO’s own, the author argues. “Turkey is not indispensable. If need be, the western democracies can live safely without it – until that happy day dawns when Ankara’s cantankerous sultan is finally defenestrated and debagged.”