Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
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IF YOU’RE AN American citizen, cancel plans for that vacation in Turkey. Don’t invite your Turkish friends to the United States, either. Recently Turkey and the United States stopped issuing visas to each other’s citizens. This is more than just another travel ban. It is a geopolitical spectacle unique in modern history: two allied countries blocking normal back-and-forth travel. An old relationship has gone deeply sour.
It’s hard to imagine that Americans will be forbidden for years to visit Topkapi Palace, or that the Grand Canyon will remain off limits to Turks. Indeed, limited visa processing resumed Monday. But, even if the visa standoff is fully resolved the breach it symbolizes will not quickly heal. Turkey has been member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — making it a military ally of the United States — for 65 years. Officially it still is. The reality is different. Turkey has written itself out of the Western alliance. Rather than accept decisions made in Washington and at NATO headquarters in Brussels, it now behaves like a Middle Eastern country pursuing its own interests. Turkey has become the first NATO dropout.
It may not be the last.
NATO is headed for a very messy break-up - The Boston Globe
The above is an op-ed but it is rather interesting. Frankly, it should not surprise anyone Turkey is pretty much giving everyone the finger.
It’s hard to imagine that Americans will be forbidden for years to visit Topkapi Palace, or that the Grand Canyon will remain off limits to Turks. Indeed, limited visa processing resumed Monday. But, even if the visa standoff is fully resolved the breach it symbolizes will not quickly heal. Turkey has been member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — making it a military ally of the United States — for 65 years. Officially it still is. The reality is different. Turkey has written itself out of the Western alliance. Rather than accept decisions made in Washington and at NATO headquarters in Brussels, it now behaves like a Middle Eastern country pursuing its own interests. Turkey has become the first NATO dropout.
It may not be the last.
NATO is headed for a very messy break-up - The Boston Globe
The above is an op-ed but it is rather interesting. Frankly, it should not surprise anyone Turkey is pretty much giving everyone the finger.