Time to terminate Turkey’s Nato membership

President Erdogan’s close relationship with enemies of the West can no longer be ignored by the alliance

In the 16 years since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power, he has shown himself to be a masterful manipulator in his dealings with the West. Playing on Europe’s desire to maintain close ties with a country deemed to be of vital geopolitical importance, Mr Erdogan has blithely pursued his own agenda in the knowledge that the Europeans would always seek to keep on friendly terms with Ankara.

Thus, at a time when Europe’s main security priority has been combating Islamist terror groups such as al-qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), the Turkish leader has carried on supporting Islamist causes, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Indeed, there have even been suggestions, made by the outgoing US ambassador to Ankara, that Turkey supported a group linked to al-qaeda during Syria’s bitter civil war. And there remains the distinct possibility that Mr Erdogan’s love affair with

political Islam could backfire in spectacular fashion if British officials investigating the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing conclude that one of the Libyan Islamist groups that receives Turkish backing was involved in the atrocity.

Even so, to judge by the West’s previous track record in handling Mr Erdogan, it appears the desire to keep the Turks onside and firmly wedded to the Nato alliance will always take preference over even the most provocative acts by the Turkish government.

And it was no doubt Mr Erdogan’s belief that Turkey’s vital geopolitical position enables him to act with impunity that has persuaded him to invest in a sophisticated Russian air-defence system.

The fact that Russia has agreed to sell Turkey its state-of-the art S-400 missiles is itself something of a surprise given that, just a few years ago, Russia and Turkey were on the brink of all-out war after a Turkish warplane shot down a Russian Sukhoi fighter over Syria. Tensions have clearly eased, to the extent that Turkey has now started taking delivery of its new S-400 missile systems as part of a $2 billion arms package Ankara has signed with Moscow.

To judge by the fierce response the move has provoked from Washington, this could well be an act of provocation too far in terms of Turkey maintaining some semblance of cordial relations with the West.

Critics of the arms deal say Turkey’s decision to buy a weapon that was specifically designed to shoot down Nato warplanes raises serious questions about Ankara’s continued membership of the organisation.

That certainly seems to be the view in Washington where the Trump administration is threatening to end Turkey’s participation in the multinational F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme if it goes ahead with the S-400.

The F-35, which has advanced stealth technology, is set to play a key role in Nato operations for decades to come, with many member states – including Britain – buying significant numbers of the new plane.

Turkey was given the right to buy 100 of the warplanes by dint of its Nato membership. But even Mr Erdogan must understand that he cannot be allowed to buy America’s latest military aircraft at the same time as acquiring Russian anti-aircraft missile systems that have been designed to shoot them down.

The Turkish leader’s decision to invest in Russian military hardware certainly puts him directly at odds with the rest of the Nato alliance, which today regards Moscow as posing the most significant threat to European security. The Russian threat dominated the agenda at last month’s meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels, which ended with Mark Esper, the acting US defense secretary, leading calls for Turkey to scrap its purchase of the S-400 system or risk losing the F-35 deal.

Turkey’s decision to press ahead with the Russian purchase has not only put it on a collision course with Washington, which is threatening to scrap the F-35 deal at the end of the month; it also shows Ankara’s utter contempt for the Nato alliance, an attitude that key European member states such as Britain must demonstrate they are no longer able to tolerate.

It is all very well Mr Erdogan playing footsie with groups of Islamist extremists; but cosying up to a powerful rogue state like Russia is another matter entirely.

When Turkey joined Nato back in 1952, the idea was that it would help to protect Nato’s eastern flank from Moscow’s aggression. That is clearly no longer the case, and European leaders should join their American counterparts in facing up to the fact that Turkey under Mr Erdogan is a lost cause.

The days when Turkey had a genuine interest in cementing its ties with the West by joining the European Union are long gone. Instead, we have a country that openly associates with those who wish to do us harm.

Consequently, now that Mr Erdogan has demonstrated that he feels more at home in Moscow than he does in Brussels, we should acknowledge where Turkey’s true interests lie, and terminate its Nato membership.