Turkey\u2019s engagement with the European Union has long been a \u201ctransactional\u201d one, thanks to its accelerating slide toward authoritarianism in recent years.<\/p>\n
Had it not been for the urgent need to stem the tide of refugees heading for Europe, the Turkey-EU relationship would have hit a dead-end much earlier.<\/p>\n
Despite serious transgressions of rule of law, fundamental rights and freedom of the media, Turkey\u2019s strategic value to Europe has made an expedient, \u201cgive and take\u201d deal possible.<\/p>\n
Transactional relationships rarely develop into sustainable partnerships and Turkey\u2019s ties with Europe are no exception. \u00a0The rift between Turkey and Europe, finally, became too big to repair.<\/p>\n
Having described Europe as \u201cracist, fascist, cruel and just like before the World War Two\u201d, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared<\/a> that Turkey would no longer be threatened by the prospect of the EU membership.<\/p>\n “It cannot continue like this, Turkey will do whatever is necessary,” he said, adding that, from now on, Turkey would not allow any Europeans on Turkish soil to carry out ‘spying’ under various pretexts – bad news for international observers, visiting delegations, and most of all, foreign correspondents.<\/p>\n The EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn responded by saying that Turkey has been moving further and further away from the EU for some time and if it did not change course quickly, membership would become increasingly unrealistic.<\/p>\n Volker Bouffier, vice chairman of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, went a step further and said<\/a> “enough is enough… Mr Erdogan and his government are not welcome in our country, and that must now be understood.”<\/p>\n Having run out of European leaders to alienate, it now seems that the fundamentals of the Turkish-American and Turkish-Russian relationships must also be renegotiated.<\/p>\n With both countries, the most crucial disagreement is over their cooperation with the People’s Protection Units, the YPG, in northern Syria, which Turkey views as a terrorist group, aligned with its own insurgent Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party, the PKK.<\/p>\n This week, the Syrian Kurdish militia claimed that it has already agreed to receiving training from Russia in northern Syria, where they said the Russians were setting up a military base. Russia’s Defence Ministry said they were only monitoring a cease-fire between the Kurdish forces and rival Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces.<\/p>\n The US is also planning to partner with the YPG to capture the control of Raqqa, the capital of ISIS from the Islamist militants.<\/p>\n Turkey has already warned<\/a> that their relations would be harmed if the US goes ahead with its cooperation with the Kurdish militants in Syria.<\/p>\n So far, reactions to Russian moves are much more measured, but Turkey is capable of showing its displeasure to Russia in other ways.<\/p>\n Russia is now accusing Turkey of violating the World Trade Organisation regulations by restricting Russian grain sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n With the US, Turkey has another important point of contention. The Turkish government wants the United States to extradite Fethullah Gulen, the Islamic preacher who is blamed for orchestrating last year’s failed coup, as soon as possible.<\/p>\n Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who is on a two-day visit to Washington, presented the US Attorney General Jeff Sessions with yet another dossier to support their extradition request.<\/p>\n