President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to be setting his country on a radical new course, the consequences of which are only now becoming apparent. It is no longer impossible to imagine that a Turkey will seek to leave NATO or at least have its membership suspended by other NATO states. It also seems likely that after over 30 years of knocking on the door of the EU seeking admission, Turkey may abandon the whole business as a complete waste of time and effort. Erdogan, buoyed by his popularity, clearly feels himself empowered to make some profound changes to Turkey's traditional relationships. Russia has for 60 years been the enemy and the United States the essential friend, able to use its vast airbase at Incirlik to project its airpower in the region. Though Turkish trade with Russian and the Turkic former Soviet republics has ballooned, with leading contractors securing prestigious commissions in Moscow and St Petersburg, the largest and most wealthy market, that of Europe remains Turkey's chief ambition. There is a widespread perception that the EU has delayed Turkish accession talks because of the racism and Islamophobia of some member states, not least France and Germany. In the 1980s when the Özal government first initiated the accession process amid much excitement in Turkey, an urbane Turkish banker was told by a European colleague at a Brussels dinner, that Turkey could never become part of Europe because it was not Christian. The irony is that Turkey has managed to leverage the EU reluctance to admit it, to produce favorable temporary trade agreements with Brussels. Erdogan may be imagining that by putting EU accession onto a back burner, if not turning off the gas entirely, Ankara will be able to keep its special trading status.
Yet the EU is angry that Turkey has not joined in the sanctions against Russia over the seizure of Crimea and the continuing interference in Ukraine and now Moldova also. The new EU foreign policy chief Fredrica Mogherini has just been in Turkey urging Erdogan to get on side. But Erdogan will have taken far more notice of his other visitor, Vladimir Putin. The Russian president chose his trip to announce the abandonment of a gas pipeline under the Black Sea that would have supplied the EU Balkan states. Instead he favored a new line running through Turkey. Erdogan has already annoyed Washington by refusing to allow US warplanes to fly from Incirlik on combat missions against the so-called Islamic State fighters. This would have amused Putin. But Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama have one common interest, which is a halt to flow of fighters over the Turkish border, on their way to join up with terror groups. The motives of course are different. Putin wants to protect his ally Bashar Al-Assad. Washington wants to stop a major threat to the entire region. Yet the seems that Erdogan remains unprepared to clampdown on border crossings, preferring to blame the countries from which the terrorist recruits originated. This is dangerous territory. Erdogan seems prepared to start tearing up Turkey's traditional relationships in return for an uncertain new relationship with Moscow.
