Turkey and the United States in the twenty-first century: friends or foes?

Abstract

Turkey and the United States for a long time treated each other as “staunch allies” during the Cold War period. The end of the East–West confrontation, however, heralded the beginning of a new era in Turkish–American relations due to the changing priorities of the long-time allies, which manifested themselves in their policies toward Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War. The divergence of approaches toward the future of the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks aggravated the tension in their bilateral relations. Had it not been for the sake of having an allied history together, “rivalry” would be the term to define the nature of the current state of affairs in Turkish–American relations. The sources of policies which have brought the two countries to the brink of wrangling are discussed in this paper. It is emphasized that the lack of a common security culture is primarily responsible for most of the trouble being encountered in their bilateral relations.