Taking a firm approach with Turkey is essential for safeguarding U.S. regional interests and curbing Erdogan's unpredictable and manipulative policies.

Turkey and the United States have shared a treaty alliance since Ankara officially joined NATO in 1952. However, their bilateral relationship, spanning seven decades, has experienced its fair share of fluctuations. Tensions arose in the mid-1960s when the U.S. made a secret deal with the Soviet Union to remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey during the Cuban missile crisis, coupled with President Lyndon B. Johnson's letter expressing hesitancy to defend Turkey over Cyprus.

Later, disputes over Vietnam triggered anti-American sentiments in Turkish public opinion. In the mid-1970s, Turkey's invasion of Northern Cyprus resulted in a U.S.-imposed arms embargo and subsequent restrictions on arms exports to Turkey. Despite these challenges, a shared perception of the threat posed by Moscow during the Cold War helped maintain a robust government-to-government relationship.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, U.S.-Turkey relations flourished, reaching a pinnacle around the turn of the millennium. President Bill Clinton even referred to the ties as a "strategic partnership," and U.S. diplomatic efforts facilitated Turkey's invitation from the European Union to initiate accession talks.

However, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's leadership over the past two decades, the once-strong relationship has deteriorated significantly. Since 2003, Erdogan's influence has intentionally eroded the bilateral ties to the extent that Washington no longer views Turkey as a reliable ally. Presently, the relationship is marked by Turkey's unpredictable, contradictory, and insensitive stance on various security issues.

Despite efforts since the Gulf War to accommodate Turkey's regional security concerns, the current state of the relationship reflects Turkey's mercurial behavior. The Clinton administration's Operation Provide Comfort aimed to prevent Saddam Hussein from further harming Iraq's Kurdish population and designated the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization. During this period, Washington actively shared intelligence to curb border incursions from northern Iraq into Turkey.

 

 


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