Michael Rubin
Middle East Journal, Mar. 3, 2025
“That Turkey seeks nuclear power is no secret. Turkey will begin operating its Russia-built Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant this year.”
Why does Turkey remain in NATO? Ideologically, Turkey stands alone. It is an Islamist state and dictatorship in an association of democracies. Geopolitically, Turkey has more in common with Russia and Iran than with Europe.
Erdoğan’s insistence that Turkey remain in NATO may be more sinister. Turkey has great power ambitions.
At an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodyrmyr Zelensky on February 28, 2025, President Donald Trump cast doubt on the viability of NATO. His moral equivalence is a dagger at the heart of NATO, but Trump is neither the first nor only threat to NATO. Turkey’s populist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long relished his ability to threaten NATO from inside.
He has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to paralyze the alliance by blocking consensus. When Sweden and Finland sought to join NATO, for example, Erdogan used his de facto veto to extort Stockholm and Helsinki to get them to roll back their freedoms and censor political dissidents on their soil….SOURCE