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Turkey Sanctions Vote Highlights U.S. Fallout With NATO Ally

Turkey Sanctions Vote Underscores U.S. Breakdown With NATO Ally

(Bloomberg) -- The passage of sanctions legislation against Turkey in the U.S. House of Representatives underscores a sober reality about U.S. ties to a key NATO ally: Things can still get worse.

President Donald Trump’s praise for Turkey’s role in helping U.S. forces kill the head of Islamic State and his plan to host President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House next month aren’t enough to mask the view in Washington that Turkey’s actions increasingly conflict with American and NATO interests.

Frustration over Turkey’s military offensive in northern Syria -- even if it was green-lit by Trump, as his critics contend -- as well as its expanding ties to Russia, highlighted by the purchase of a Russian missile defense system, and its worsening relations with Israel are all undermining support for the Turkish leader in the U.S.

Turkey Sanctions Vote Highlights U.S. Fallout With NATO Ally

“As long as Erdogan is in charge of Turkey we need to accept the reality that we’re not dealing with a friend,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who has argued for reducing U.S. reliance on Turkish air bases and reviewing nuclear weapons storage there.

Turkey is increasingly facing problems much like those Saudi Arabia has had in Washington since the killing of Jamal Khashoggi last year and the humanitarian disaster caused by its war in Yemen -- its backing inside the Oval Office isn’t translating into support anywhere else.

The legislation that passed the House on Tuesday on a overwhelming vote of 403-16 would sanction Turkish leaders and restrict the Turkish military’s access to U.S. financing and arms. It also would penalize Halkbank, a state-owned lender the U.S. says broke sanctions on Iran, as well as financial institutions found to have aided in transactions that helped finance the offensive in Syria.

Turkey Sanctions Vote Highlights U.S. Fallout With NATO Ally

“President Trump has let Erdogan off scot-free,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel of New York said on the House floor. “It’s up to Congress to act to make it clear where the American government stands.”

After the House vote, Fahrettin Altun, an Erdogan spokesman, said on Twitter that the bill “is in direct contradiction to the spirit of a strategic alliance.”

“These brazen efforts to damage our relationship will have long lasting detrimental consequences on many areas of existing bilateral cooperation,” he wrote in another post.

While opposed by Turkey, the legislation (H.R. 4695) -- which now goes to the Senate -- doesn’t include the harshest measures debated by lawmakers. Other bills that await consideration would target Turkey’s energy industry and sovereign debt. It’s the type of sanctions legislation the U.S. usually applies to enemies, not military partners in a 70-year-old alliance.

“The legislative branch is mistrustful of President Trump when it comes to Turkey,” Naz Durakoglu, a senior policy adviser to Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and staff director at the NATO Observer Group in the Senate, said at a Council on Foreign Relations event. “There’s an overwhelming push to do something.”

Cyprus Crisis

Turkey has repeatedly clashed with Western allies in recent years, and its attacks on Kurdish forces in Syria, which Erdogan considers terrorists, have sent ties with the U.S. to their lowest since the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974. The U.S. had partnered with the Kurds in Syria to fight Islamic State.

Other NATO members have faced a dilemma similar to that of the U.S. In Europe there’s broad frustration about Erdogan’s authoritarian rule, his incursion into northern Syria and his purchase of an S-400 missile defense system from Russia. But there’s no formal mechanism to remove a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the benefits of keeping Turkey in the alliance are seen as outweighing the costs, no matter how frustrating. At least for now.

In addition to having NATO’s second-largest military, Turkey helps provide direct land access to the Middle East and the credibility that a Muslim-majority nation brings to an alliance dominated by the U.S. and Western European nations.

“You can rest assured that we need each other more than ever,” Turkish Ambassador to the U.S. Serdar Kilic said on Tuesday during an event at his country’s embassy in Washington. “But I have to make a correction. United States needs Turkey as much as Turkey needs United States.”

Buffer Zone

Fabrice Pothier, former head of policy planning for two NATO secretaries general, said the alliance provides the best forum for working out differences with Turkey, especially on Syria. Erdogan sent troops over the border as part of a long-sought effort to build a buffer zone between his nation and the Kurdish forces.

“The only place where you can deal with Turkey nowadays is within NATO,” said Pothier, a senior defense fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “So the question is, do we try to get out of this crisis, possibly working with Erdogan to stabilize Syria, or do we just keep saying that what Turkey is doing is unacceptable. I would say that NATO is the place where the conversation needs to happen.”

U.S.-Turkey ties have long been strained. Turkey refused the U.S. access to its base during the Iraq war in 2003 and its more recent purchase of the Russian missile defense system prompted the Pentagon to kick it out of the next-generation F-35 jet program. In recent years the U.S. has also invested in expanding its presence in bases in surrounding countries such as Greece and Jordan, which some analysts see as an effort to reduce its reliance on Turkey’s Incirlik air base should ties worsen significantly.

Nuclear Weapons

Haass called on the U.S. to review its storage of nuclear weapons at Incirlik as well, though he conceded that removing them could prompt Turkey, which has repeatedly flirted with the notion of acquiring nuclear weapons, to use that as a justification to start its own program. The U.S. has stationed nuclear weapons in Turkey going back to the 1960s, when their presence became a bargaining chip with the Soviet Union to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis.

While Trump’s policy on Turkey has been erratic, a senior U.S. official, asking not to be identified discussing policy debates, said the president believes economic sanctions have been effective in keeping Erdogan in line. “I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey” if it does anything “off limits,” Trump said in a tweet on Oct. 7.

NATO membership was long seen as a stabilizing influence in the U.S.-Turkey relationship, but that effect may be shrinking. Gönül Tol, founding director of the Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute, said that anti-American sentiment, fanned by Erdogan, has increased among Turkey’s electorate and in the military, which used to be impervious to such ideologies.

“The Turkish military has been an asset in this relationship,” Tol said at the Council on Foreign Relations event. “But now, it’s become ideological.”

Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said the basic assumption made by the U.S. military now is that in the event of conflict it will have to work around Turkey.

“Just because they’re at the club, doesn’t mean we can work with them,” Stein said.

--With assistance from Daniel Flatley, Justin Sink and Glen Carey.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Wainer in New York at dwainer3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert

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