Halted visa services between NATO allies damage bilateral ties
The latest moves by the US and Turkey to halt visa services for each other’s citizens are the culmination of unresolved issues between the two NATO allies, analysts told Xinhua.
“The current situation can be described as the initial phase of a crisis,” said Huseyin Bagci, a professor of international relations at the Ankara-based Middle East Technical University.
The already chilly relations between Washington and Ankara went further south after the US embassy in Ankara announced on Sunday an immediate suspension of all non-immigrant visa services for Turks, prompting Turkey to respond in kind only hours later.
The US move came after Metin Topuz, a Turkish national working with the US consulate in Istanbul, was arrested last week over charges of espionage and links to a network accused by Ankara of being behind last year’s coup attempt.
“The situation represents a serious threshold in bilateral ties,” said Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies.
The US decision to suspend visa applications should not be taken lightly considering Turkey is a NATO ally, underlined Ulgen, a former diplomat.
The friction between the two allies came to a head at a time when Turkey has been knitting closer ties with Russia and Iran, both adversaries of Washington for the moment.
Since the summer of 2016, Ankara has been acting in cooperation with Moscow and Tehran in the Syrian theater rather than with Washington.
Turkey and Iran have agreed to increase cooperation for regional security following recent visits by their top soldiers and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s trip to Tehran on October 4.
In addition, the two neighbors have concluded a deal to use local currencies in bilateral trade, a move not expected to please Washington as such a trend would damage the US dollars’ dominance in world trade.
The Turkish move to buy Russia’s sophisticated S-400 air defense missiles despite US concern is another source of annoyance for Washington.
Though Turkey and the US went through stormy periods in the past, this is noticeably the first time Ankara is facing such a sanction by its NATO partner.
“Such a deep confidence crisis in Turkish-US ties has been very rare,” noted Ulgen. “This is pushing the limits of a relationship between allies.”
Though extremely disturbed by Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia and Iran, the US is aware that there is not much it can do about it, said Haldun Solmazturk, a retired general of the Turkish military.
More importantly, he maintained, Washington knows a coalition of the three would not be able to stop at this stage its major plan for the region – the creation of a Kurdish state.
Another staff member of the US consulate in Istanbul, also a Turkish citizen, was summoned on Monday to testify, as his wife and child were detained over alleged links to the network led by the US-based Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen, who is accused by Ankara of masterminding a failed coup in July last year.
Washington’s slowness in offering support to its ally following the coup and refusal to turn over Gulen have contributed much to a worsening relationship with Turkey, where many believe the US played a role in the putsch. “The US will not hand over Gulen,” Bagci said. “The differences of opinion between the two sides are hard to eliminate.”