FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
November 13, 2019
Contact: press@defensepriorities.org
WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with President Trump in the White House. Defense Priorities Policy Director Benjamin H. Friedman issued the following statement in response:
“President Erdogan of Turkey should not have been invited to the White House today, but his visit would have been a good time to inform him the United States is distancing itself from Turkey and no longer plans to defend it.
“Turkey’s recent offensive in Syria and displacement of more than 100,000 civilians is only the latest way it has offended U.S. interests and values. It long let ISIS recruits cross into Syria. It funded radical forces there. Its threats to Kurds complicated U.S. exit from Syria. And Turkey has grown close to Russia, despite being in NATO, buying air defenses from the country the alliance is formed to oppose. Turkey is an awful ally. And that leaves out Erdogan’s offenses against liberal democracy within Turkey.
“While Washington tepidly debates whether to sanction Turkey and reduce its NATO alliance commitment to Turkey, Turkey has been dropping out of NATO. An unspoken rule of the alliance is that members buy military hardware from other members, chiefly the United States, and not from adversaries the alliance ostensibly counters.
“Closer ties with Russia prompted Ankara’s recent decision to buy the S-400 Russian air defense system. Now, Turkey threatens to buy Russian Su-35 fighters unless it is allowed to buy U.S. F-35s, which is prohibited by U.S. law due its S-400 purchase.
“Turkey is free to buy Russian defenses and conduct a foreign policy offensive to its NATO allies. But the U.S. and other NATO allies are not required to defend it no matter what.
“A better policy would disentangle us from Turkey and—even if it doesn't change its behavior—force it to pursue its ends without U.S. backing. The only loss would be an unreliable ally that is soft on terrorism and weak on liberalism.”
Defense Priorities report: Disentangling from Syria’s civil war
Defense Priorities explainer: Escaping the Syria trap