Turkey on the Brink

"Turkey on the Brink

The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2006

Philip H. Gordon, Director, Center on the United States and Europe Omer Taspinar, Director, Turkey Program

"Who lost Turkey?" A complacent West could be forced to confront this previously unthinkable question within the next few years. This risk has little to do with Turkey's alleged Islamic turn. On the contrary, the moderately Islamic Justice and Development Party (known by the Turkish acronym AKP) has done much more than previous Turkish governments to improve the country's chances of joining the European Union. Today, the problem Turkey faces is not Islamization but rather a growing nationalist frustration with the United States and Europe. A majority of Turks still want to see their country firmly anchored in the West, but because of what they perceive as European double standards and the United States' neglect of Turkish national security interests, their patience is wearing thin.

The United States and Europe should be paying close attention to what is going on in Turkey today. Turkey's relationship with the United States is under great strain. Turks deeply resent the effect that the war in Iraq has had on their own Kurdish separatism problem. Turkey's long-standing fear that independence-minded Kurdish nationalists would dominate northern Iraq, thereby setting a dangerous precedent for Kurds in Turkey, has since become reality. The Kurdish population of Turkey is about 15 million, 3 to 4 times more than Iraq's Kurdish minority. Despite U.S. government protestations to the contrary, most Turks believe that a civil war in Iraq will be followed by the creation of a de facto if not de jure independent Kurdistan. In that sense, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the ensuing disorder in the country threaten 50 years of U.S.-Turkish strategic partnership.

The situation is only slightly better on the European front. Turkey's hopes to join the EU, although boosted by Brussels's October 3, 2005, decision to begin accession negotiations, remain distant and uncertain. Such pessimism is justified on many counts, perhaps most significantly as a result of the EU's enlargement fatigue following the addition of 10 new members in 2004."

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