1 Nouvel Hay Magazine

Où en sont les relations entre les gouvernements des USA & de la Turquie (mais les dirigeants actuels ne sont pas éternels…)

"Panelists included Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA); Diliman Abdulkader, co-founder and spokesperson for American Friends of Kurdistan; and Endy Zemenides, executive director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council. Middle East Forum executive director Gregg Roman moderated the panel discussion and read closing remarks. 

Each of the speakers agreed that Turkey under Erdogan has presented massive problems for America and the West. There is no shortage of indictments against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). 

“Drilling in the Cypriot Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ),” “invading a neighbor in Syria” and “meddling in Libya” are among the foreign policy failures that isolate Turkey and leave Erdogan “highly exposed,” according to Pipes. 

Berman emphasized Turkey’s “tilt to the East” and its “relationship with rogue actors.” Indeed, Erdogan has undermined the interoperability of the NATO alliance by purchasing Russian S-400 anti-aircraft batteries, supporting terrorist factions such as Hamas and Hezbollah and looking the other way as ISIS jihadists used his country as a springboard to launch terrorist operations in Iraq and Syria. 

On the domestic front, “countless violations of human rights atrocities” continue to occur under Erdogan, said Abdulkader. “Turkey continues to be the largest jailer of journalists, surpassing China,” he continued. 

In the most recent example of Erdogan’s unending campaign to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power, Roman pointed to dozens of “mayors rounded up in the southeast of the country, almost all from Kurdish-majority towns.”

However, all of these problems are merely symptomatic of political conditions within Turkey. The challenge facing the speakers and panelists was to determine if the country’s rampant anti-Western attitudes will outlast the current regime. Can Turkey return to the “neat 50 years” between its NATO accession and Erdogan’s 2002 election when, as Pipes explained, “Washington led, Ankara followed”?

With the possible exception of Berman, the speakers agreed that Turkey’s animosity would outlive Erdogan. 

“There is no way that American foreign policy should be based on the assumption that we can bring Turkey back. It is gone as Iran is gone,” said Pipes. “Not forever, but for the duration. We need to prepare for a rogue Ankara over the long term.”

Zemenides agreed, declaring that there is “not a chance” of “Turkey coming back” if “Washington continues it…."

source : Armenian Weekly