Tough Love for Turkey
Turkey served as the southern anchor of NATO during the Cold War. It is easy to see why: It is the land bridge from Asia to Europe and from the Mideast to Central Asia.
Turkey at a Crossroads is a Special Report prepared by The Washington Times Advocacy Department and Friends of the Republic of Turkey.
Turkey served as the southern anchor of NATO during the Cold War. It is easy to see why: It is the land bridge from Asia to Europe and from the Mideast to Central Asia.
Turkey's current government is emphatically Islamist. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become more aggressive in his Islamic beliefs. There are two reasons for us to be seriously concerned:
The Turkish referendum on April 16 has the potential to effect the greatest consolidation of constitutional presidential powers in the history of the modern Republic of Turkey.
A scenario President Harry S. Truman once feared -- the fall of Turkey to tyranny and outside coercion -- seems near. The country's strongman, President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, and his ruling AK Party have dismantled the republic's free institutions in the run-up to the watershed Turkish referendum on April 16.
On Jan. 19, 2014, Turkish police stopped several trucks near the Syrian border. Upon inspection, they found mortars, artillery shells, and tens of thousands of bullets, all apparently destined for the Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate in Syria.
If Mr. Erdogan had not allowed the Islamic State operatives inside Turkey to transport weapons and explosives to Syria and Iraq openly, there would be no Islamic State as we know it today, and thousands of people likely would have evaded their brutality.