Relations between Turkey and the West are damaged, but not irreparably, and the same is true of Turkish democracy. Although President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems to believe that his country’s geostrategic importance gives him carte blanche, the fact is that Turkey needs the West, and the West needs Turkey.
MADRID – Relations between Turkey and the West are clearly going through an extremely delicate phase. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish government is pursuing an increasingly volatile foreign policy and presiding over the continued erosion of democratic norms at home. The widening schism between Turkey and its nominal Western allies is further proof of the decay of global cooperation. And yet that process is not irreversible.
MADRID – Relations between Turkey and the West are clearly going through an extremely delicate phase. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish government is pursuing an increasingly volatile foreign policy and presiding over the continued erosion of democratic norms at home. The widening schism between Turkey and its nominal Western allies is further proof of the decay of global cooperation. And yet that process is not irreversible.