A Pentagon official recently added to the American warnings.
“We strongly oppose any Turkish operation into northern Syria and have made clear our objections to Turkey,” Dana Stroul, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, said this month at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “ISIS is going to take advantage of that campaign.”
Some of Mr. Erdogan’s harshest critics warn of an endless cycle, in which the Turkish leader wins concessions from the United States and other NATO allies, such as new fighter jets and a tougher line against Kurdish militia fighters, only to escalate his demands in the future.
“This dance around the F-16 — it’s jet fighter diplomacy, and that is a mask of what’s truly at play here,” said Mark Wallace, founder of the Turkish Democracy Project, a group highly critical of Mr. Erdogan and his turn to authoritarianism. “A good ally — much less a good NATO ally — doesn’t use blackmail to get what it wants at key moments in the alliance’s history.”
Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting from Aspen, Colo.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/us/politics/turkey-nato-ukraine-russia.html
Comments