It is no surprise that Turkey’s membership in NATO would become a stumbling block other Western countries seeking membership.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan opposes their entry because he claims that Sweden and Finland are backing “terrorism.” To Turkey, backing “terrorism” means that they support the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey considers to be a “terrorist group,” along with any other associated armed “Kurdish groups active in Turkey and its periphery.”
Any reasonable and justified opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO could be based upon considerations of what is best for NATO collectively. Turkey is anything but unified with NATO’s interests. Turkey is an Islamic country with a despotic president. It prioritizes the Sharia, which it is steadily re-implementing after decades of secularism. It should’ve been thrown out of NATO a long time ago. But no one foresaw that Erdogan would lead it away from secularism and down the road of Islamization. After World War II, Turkey under the leadership of Celâl Bayar made the groundbreaking, historic choice to side with the free world and the Western bloc. This led to Turkey’s NATO membership in 1952. But the global situation has changed immensely since then, and continuing this membership is a big mistake given the direction of the country.
Turkey is advancing its own interests; no one could expect anything else. Turkey asserts that “historically Turkey has never undermined a NATO consensus and will still try not to do it. However, it will not be unconditional.” Of course not. It should be obvious that Turkey will do what is best for its own ambitions. Islam was not an obvious big global threat during the World World II era and the immediate postwar period, although NATO should have been more cautious given the historical facts about Islam and the Grand Mufti’s alliance with Hitler.
In 2018, the Turkish daily newspaper Yeni Şafak, which is close to Erdogan, called for an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) “army of Islam” to attack Israel. Last April, Erdogan declared Israel to be an enemy of Islam. He called upon all of humanity to “follow closely Israel’s hostility against Islam.” A month later, when Israel was being attacked by a barrage of Hamas rocket fire and was forced to defend itself via Operation Guardian of the Walls, Erdogan asked the pope to “mobilize the Christian world” to support the jihad against Israel. Erdogan also falsely accused Israel of a “massacre” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Turkey’s ambitions under Erdogan include a revived Ottoman Empire and the destruction of Israel, not a stronger NATO alliance.
By a unanimous vote, Turkey should be expelled from NATO.
“Why does Turkey oppose Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership?,” by Umut Uras, Al Jazeera, May 17, 2022:
Sweden and Finland’s historic bids to become NATO members have hit a roadblock after top Turkish officials took a tough stance against a Nordic expansion of the transatlantic alliance.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Swedish and Finnish delegations “should not bother” to travel to Ankara after Stockholm announced the two countries would send officials to try to change Turkey’s stance.
All 30 NATO members must unanimously give the green light for the two historically neutral countries to join the alliance. Sweden and Finland recently announced their intention to join NATO in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey became a member of NATO, together with Greece, as part of the alliance’s second expansion in 1952, less than three years after it was established.
Here is what you need to know about Turkey’s move.
Why does Turkey have a problem with Sweden and Finland’s proposed membership?
Erdogan on Monday accused the two Nordic countries of backing “terrorism”.“Neither of these countries have a clear, open attitude towards terrorist organisations,” Erdogan said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara has designated a “terrorist group”, and other armed Kurdish groups active in Turkey and its periphery.
“How can we trust them?”
On the same day, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu slammed Finland and Sweden for not extraditing suspects wanted in Turkey despite Ankara’s requests.
The wanted individuals were either accused of having links to the PKK or to the Gulen movement, which is blamed by Turkey for a 2016 coup attempt that killed hundreds of people….
born saturday says
the story that turkey was secular is a myth…. turkey has never in its whole history been secular…
PMK says
Maybe it was never truly secular, but the Turkish military was strongly pro-Western and kept Islamism in check for many years, particularly during the early days of the cold war.
joan_of_ark2005 says
How can you say that?? If you don’t believe Wikipedia, or anything of their whole article explaining islam in Turkey, then do a search and you’ll find website after website, basically saying the same thing, that Turkey has been Islam, since practically the beginning of Turkey! Did they take a short break from Islam for some short time?
“The established presence of Islam in the region that now constitutes modern Turkey dates back to the later half of the 11th century, when the Seljuks started expanding into eastern Anatolia.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Turkey
That link I shown here, will tell you everything you need to know about Islam in Turkey, and how it’s population is over 95% muslim! And there are MANY websites telling this.same fact.
I’ve just got a lot to do, so since that link was on the first page of searching, I pasted it here for you. If I had more time, I could of given you many more sites.
So could you send some evidence/proof, of your comment that “the Turkish military was strongly pro-Western and kept Islamism in check for many years”
I’m interested in seeing where you got that statement of yours from…
gravenimage says
born saturday and joan, you might want to look at Turkey under Attaturk. He did indeed do a great deal to curb the power of Islam after the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century.
Was there ever a period when Turkey was completely secular? No.
But Kemalism was *very* influential, and often enforced. Even today Erdogan is trying to dismantle the last vestiges of secularism. And this is why so many in the West considered Turkey to be secular.
and joan, your claim that Wikipedia denies the influence of secularism in Turkey is simply mistaken
There is, in fact, an entire article on the subject:
“Secularism in Turkey”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism_in_Turkey
It is quite accurate.
Rufolino says
Turkey made clear its religious position some time ago when Erdogan said,
“Moderate Islam ?? There is no such thing as moderate Islam. There is only Islam !”
joan_of_ark2005 says
Yup, you are correct: An article about it, on Nov 2017
“These epithets of ‘moderate Islam’ are very ugly, it is disrespectful and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11436/turkey-rejects-moderate-islam
gravenimage says
So true, Rufolino and joan.
born saturday says
turkey is blackmailing the usa in multiple ways… first of all turkey is blackmailing the usa to lift the sanctions imposed that forbid arms sales from the usa to turkey by saying that if the usa will not sell the arms that it is asking, it will get more arms and jets from russia..
turkey specifically is asking for f 35 jets and new f16 jets, and anti aircraft missiles at the moment and since the political establishment of the usa is not corrupt enough to give that so far, the blackmail moved on to the veto of sweden and finland entry to nato….
turkey need these weapons to invade the last remaining country in its borders that it has not invaded yet… greece…
GreekEmpress says
+1
gravenimage says
Grimly true. This is really more of the same.
Yechiel Chang-Danielovitch says
I couldn’t help noticing the most appropriate accompanying photo of evil man and evil-axis ally / devil worshiper Erdrogan who supports Hamas. The background shows his true “red” colors. Sort of looks like he has horns, don’t you think. LOL.
raja says
Yechiel Chang-Danielovitch,
That just about sums up islam for you and me, to a large extent.
Infidel says
This observation has been made many times in other posts, since this is the photo of Erdogan used in most stories on this site about Turkey 😈
joan_of_ark2005 says
It’s been written, talked about, discussed, by Christians, NON Christians, Prophecy teachers, theologians, etc etc….for a very long time now, that Erdogan has the characteristics of the Antichrist. I also have believed that for a very long time.
So, it’s written in the bible, that we can’t know the exact date of the entime, BUT we are also told that He will give us signs to watch for…
So, I really would love to know, if that picture was taken like that, intentional, or was just a coincidence. Now, if it’s just a fluke, and it just happened to come out that way, we Christians would NO DOUBT call that picture, a SIGN.
I mean, how perfect was that picture taken, to clearly have that certain background, look like “horns”.
If many Christians believed, he was a great candidate for the Antichrist position, EVEN WAY BEFORE this picture came out, then that picture has GOT to be a sign. Other than that, it’s just a coincidence! Naaaa…
And I would just love to talk to the person that made that picture, I got questions for them! Or say….”Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!”
Anyway, that picture is downright CREEPY! lol
gravenimage says
This is a well-known photo. Here it is from another source:
“This Devil looks like Erdogan”
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/6pyxxd/this_devil_looks_like_erdogan/
There are some very funny posts on that thread.
Yes, this is just a photo in front of an unfortunate logo. But it seems very apt, so it has been used here many times.
Black Sabbath says
Throw turkey out of NATO and let Finland and Norway in. Jihadis have no place in NATO.
gravenimage says
Sounds good to me. I *wish* this was likely to happen.
Black Sabbath says
Throw turkey out of NATO and let Finland and Sweden in. Jihadis have no place in NATO.
born saturday says
sweden in particular is in need of entering nato as it is facing another serious national security threat other than russia… just like many other countries but in a larger magnitute than any….
apparently, the open borders, open legs and pro invaion policy of sweden has led it to be under islamic occupation of much of the country (most main cities) in a much larger extend than other european countries…. a genocide of the original swedish people is occuring nationwide which is questionable if the swedish military can stop, when it is ordered to deploy in the cities…. therefore the swedish people have all changed their minds about entering the nato alliance and abandoning their neutral stance….
born saturday says
i am hoping that for most it would be taken for granted that russia has its hands involved in the muslim migration of europe and also to the coronavirus spread together with china……
gravenimage says
Russia *has* been sending Muslims to the Polish border. Very disturbing stuff.
gravenimage says
And both Finland and Sweden are being threatened by Russia. Russia may not be in a position to carry this out, but after Ukraine this has to be taken seriously.
PMK says
All 30 NATO members must unanimously give the green light for the two historically neutral countries to join the alliance.
That might not be the case. NATO is more than a military alliance. The NATO treaty obliges its members to, among other things, further the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. If the other 29 members unanimously declare Turkey to be in ‘material breach’ of its treaty obligations, there is a way for them to effectively remove Turkey from NATO.
https://www.justsecurity.org/66574/can-turkey-be-expelled-from-nato/.
gravenimage says
Yes–I don’t know what happens if Turkey decides to cynically block them.
Infidel says
Problem w/ NATO is that they have no mechanism for expelling anyone. And while I’m supportive of Ukraine and any other country that wants to oppose Russia and Belarus, it’s got to be recognized that NATO is just a mechanism to have the US defend what is essentially a demilitarized Europe. And w/ China becoming a threat just about everywhere – not to mention our budget issues – that’s not something we can afford
We need to leave NATO. Not b’cos we need to get in bed w/ Putin, as Eric Swalwell or Adam Schitt might allege, but b’cos our bigger threat is China, not Russia. Russia has exposed the military joke that it is in their war w/ Ukraine: it’s what – 2 months now? – and they have had to cut back on their original goals of conquering all of Ukraine to just building a land bridge from Rostov-on-Don to the Crimea, and I daresay could barely defend themselves if someone invaded, say Yakutsk. But China is everywhere, and that’s what we need to combat. And the platform for combating them is Quad, not NATO, and it’s a better alliance, where all the 4 members – Australia, Japan and India – are playing prominent roles, unlike in NATO
raja says
Infidel,
I am on the same page as you viz a viz NATO, QUAD et al.
Wish the world takes note of the evils of Commies and other Lefties who want to establish utopian govt across the world, but only produce pathetic nation-states. These political parties and states have become a nuisance for the world. The powerful West should have been cautious when they were hell bent on doing business with Putin, Deng Xiaoping etc under the guise of engaging the rogues. Now can they all exclaim: We will be cautious. Evil Chicom / China is entirely the making of US followed by Europe and other nations.
gravenimage says
Actually, I think that China has closely watched what has happened with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If Russia had blitzkrieged the country without opposition from Ukraine or opprobrium and sanctions from much of the rest of the world, I think they might have already attacked Taiwan. But I think they ae biding their time now. Doesn’t mean they are not still a threat, but I think the threat level has gone down. Similarly, Turkey has not attacked more Greek islands. They have dialed things back as well.
More proof that standing up to bullies is generally a wise move.
Jamie James says
May it have anything to do with Turkey is Islamic while Finland and Sweden are Christian?
OLD GUY says
All 30 NATO nations have to vote unanimously to allow a new member, WHY? Seems like a majority vote would make more sense. This gives a country like Turkey a position of power to negotiate for their vote with other countries, is that a good idea? It’s LET’S MAKE A DEAL time.
Black Sabbath says
Turkey should be removed from the NATO for its support to islamic terrorists around the globe. Turkey is a russian stooge and it is a threat to European security. Turkey is responsible for pushing illegal muslims into European countries, who are in general terrorists, pedophiles, and thugs.
gravenimage says
Yes. Turkey is no ally of ours.
Glynnda J White says
WHOA!!! how bout that photo? Is that photo shopped or just a coincidence? LOL….There is no question that Turkey would oppose the entrance of passive nations into NATO…they won’t vote the way Islamists want them to vote…..they don’t openly oppose Israel….I believe NATO should be dissolved…no serious help to anybody but they sure do take a lot of money….if we are to set up partnerships with other nations who need protection from the big boys, we are going to have to stop our bullying ways…libs & RINOS and start treating other nations with respect, take them off the international welfare system and expect them to run their own military and produce as a sovereign nation….but ALAS that viewpoint goes against the GLOBALIST viewpoint….
gravenimage says
No, it’s a real photo. Look online and you can find it.
gravenimage says
Why Turkey is opposed to Finland, Sweden membership in NATO
……………
Yes, this is disgusting–but scarcely surprising.
I think that besides the issue of the Kurds that Erdogan is rather supportive of Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine, because it would give him a similar excuse for attacking the Greek islands.