Washington: The crisis in US-Turkish relations, which already has put Turkey’s economy under massive strain, also risks souring military ties between the two NATO allies, unleashing unknown geopolitical consequences.
US President Donald Trump last week announced new tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum, causing the country’s currency to plummet, over his frustration with Ankara's continued detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson.
Then on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote in The New York Times that unless Washington can “reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect,” Turkey will “start looking for new and allies.”
The warning came after Erdogan held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss economic and trade issues, as well as the Syria crisis. Military ties between Turkey and the US are already fraught over Washington’s support to Syrian Kurdish fighters known as the YPG, which Ankara sees as little more than an offshoot of the “terrorist” Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
