![]() ![]() The 1947 Truman Doctrine, while ostensibly relating to Greece and its preservation from communist insurgency, was aimed primarily at foiling a communist takeover of Turkey, which the United States saw as a far graver threat to its Middle Eastern interests. Background: Turkey and the Westįor as long as the cold war was simmering, Turkey was crucial to American strategic interests. Other issues relevant to our discussion are Turkey’s domestic policies the country’s conflict with its Kurdish minority President Turgat Ozal’s status in Turkish politics the Islam-state relationship in Turkey Turkish nationalism Turkey’s commitment to the West and its democratic values and Turkey’s relations with the Arab and Central Asian worlds. Among these problems were the apparent decline in Turkey’s strategic value due to the decline in inter-bloc rivalries Turkey’s wearisome – and, some will add, fruitless – courtship of the EU the Greco-Turkish conflict over Cyprus disputes with Iraq and Syria over water resources the persistent territorial quarrel with Syria over the Hatay province (Alexandretta to the Syrians) and Iraq’s debt to Turkey (2–3 billion dollars). ![]() The fifteen-year period under consideration confronted Turkey with an assortment of problems, whose ramifications are vital for an understanding of Ankara’s moves during the Gulf crisis, in the war itself, and in the course of the 1990s. It will examine, among other things, the Time writer’s glib assertion of Turkey’s unequivocal readiness to serve as the West’s policeman in the Middle East. This chapter will look at Turkey before and after the Gulf War, starting in the mid-1980s and concluding at the end of the 1990s. To which the article’s author observed, “There is no need to look for such a country: Turkey fits every specification. Benefits: regional superpower within a few years eventual major influence on wider world affairs possible. Ethnic links with some of those states, booming free-market economy, permitting some assistance to poorer brethren highly desirable. ![]() Must be firm U.S.–European ally desirous of still closer ties yet, Islamic in religion and culture, capable of serving as a role model of secularized Western democracy for other Muslim states. Nation to serve as go-between for the Western world and the Middle East and assist in turning suspicion into cooperation. ![]()
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