Report says Turkey is a US ally in name only

Ahmed Samy Abdel Fattah

The New Yorker magazine published a report on Nov. 14 analyzing the ties between the United States and Turkey. Robin Wright, who wrote the report, described Turkey as a US ally in name only.

According to the report, Turkey allowed jihadists to slip across its southern border to join ISIS. Turkey then invaded Syria, this fall, to fight the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia that defeated ISIS.

Turkey has also cooperated with Iran, and a state-owned bank facilitated a multibillion-dollar Iranian scheme to evade U.S. sanctions.

Erdogan blamed Hizmet (or Service) movement, led by Gulen, for the failed military coup in 2016.

The writer said thousands of people have been purged from civil-service jobs for opposing the regime. She said since the nineteen-sixties, the US and Turkey—which represent the western and eastern flanks of NATO, the world’s largest military alliance—usually shared views on common threats, whether it was the Soviet Union or extremism.

“It is fair to ask if Turkey is still really an ally of the United States in anything more than name,” said Phil Gordon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as the Obama Administration’s White House coördinator on Middle East policy.