Despite Turkey’s fractured ties to NATO, which has increasingly alienated its people from the alliance over the past year, there seems to be a paradigm shift in Ankara’s foreign policy towards its allies. Arash Toupchinejad analyzes how NATO can capitalize on this shift in attitude to motivate Turkey’s rapprochement with the West under the auspices of the Framework Nations Concept.
As long as NATO appeases Turkey’s authoritarianism, the Alliance’s commitment to human rights and democracy is put in question.
This January, Turkey’s parliament passed a series of constitutional amendments that would drastically expand the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Slated for a national referendum in April, Thomas Lee discusses the potential implications of President Erdoğan’s new powers, and the impact they could have on the future of the country’s democracy, security, and multilateral relations.