Is Erdoğan Hoping to Bring 84 Million Turks into Europe?
by Burak Bekdil • July 14, 2023 at 5:00 am
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan talks about an "evil West" but wants to become part of it -- perhaps to "improve" it?
Erdoğan needs money. He needs it now, and preferably from Western markets instead of one-off cash injections from Russia and friendly Gulf states.
Erdoğan aims to... [k]eep within the EU membership process, which he calculates may give Turkey better borrowing options on international markets, as well as the possibility of sending 84 million more Turks into Europe and potentially changing its prevailing religion.
Could [Erdoğan] be hoping that the U.S. Congress will endorse the sale of F-16 Block 70 fighter jets to Turkey? There will be many horse-trading moments during the process, but this is the beginning of a new tactical warfare between Erdogan's Turkey and the West.
"The Swedes were too eager to receive Erdoğan's blessing and Erdoğan used that yearning to tie them down. Remember Gulliver in the Land of Lilliput?" — Eugene Kogan, defense expert, Tbilisi, Georgia, to the author, July 10, 2023.
If logic worked in politics, the question to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan should have been: Why has your country had so passionately sought out, in vain, membership in the European Union?
Erdoğan talks about an "evil West" but wants to become part of it -- perhaps to "improve" it? Why did Turkey send its 15,000 sons, only to greet with honor 700 dead soldiers in a war that took place 8,000 km away on the Korean Peninsula? Turkey has been a full member candidate for the EU since 1987, but the Korean military campaign earned it NATO membership in 1952.
