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** Turkey: Drifting Further into Russian Orbit ([link removed])
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by Burak Bekdil • November 9, 2021 at 5:00 am
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* Sanctions are mandated by law for "any entity that does significant business with the Russian military or intelligence sectors" — Office of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Chair Robert Menendez, Daily Sabah, September 28, 2021.
* "Any new purchases by Turkey must mean new sanctions." — U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, referring to a December 2020 U.S. decision to impose CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) on Turkey for its acquisition of the S-400 missile system, Twitter, September 28, 2021.
* In addition, Ankara and Moscow would discuss Russian know-how and construction of two more nuclear energy plants for Turkey, in addition to a $10 billion nuclear reactor already being built on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
* All that strategic planning will further increase NATO ally Turkey's dependence on Russia, also Turkey's biggest supplier of natural gas.
* "Putin and his administration are well aware of Turkey's weaknesses: a) economy goes from bad to worse; b) the Pandemic is not under control; c) gas prices on increase but Russia is ready to offer a friendly discount to Turkey; d) military acquisitions facing a hostile U.S. Senate." — Eugene Kogan, a defense and security analyst based in Tbilisi, Georgia; to Gatestone.
* "The Turkish president will continue to play a spoiler role within NATO and provide Putin further opportunities to undermine the transatlantic alliance and its values." — Aykan Erdemir, former member of Turkey's parliament and now based in Washington D.C., email to Gatestone.
* [Erdoğan] will not step back from.... the Russia card in his hand, unless he sees that his love affair with Russia will come with a punishing cost.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to make Turkey a unique example of political oxymoron: An "invaluable" NATO ally also in deeply strategic and military alliance with Russia. He will not step back from his horse trading with the West, the Russia card in his hand, unless he sees that his love affair with Russia will come with a punishing cost. Pictured: Erdoğan (right) with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Image source: kremlin.ru)

Turkey has been a NATO ally since 1952. On October 6, NATO's childishly naïve secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, praised Turkey as "an important ally [that] played an important role in defeating Daesh." Both of his suggestions are grossly incorrect: Turkey is becoming an important Russian ally, not a NATO ally, whose irregular militia allies in Syria are the jihadist remnants of Daesh (Islamic State).

Like a spurned lover, deeply offended by President Joe Biden's refusal to meet him on the sidelines of September's UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Turkey's Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rushed to the Black Sea town of Sochi, Russia, on September 29 for a tête-a-tête with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On his way back from New York, Erdoğan told reporters, "the signs are not good in Turkey's relations with the United States."

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