Category: Atlantic Council in Turkey

What’s behind Erdogan’s backing of Sweden’s NATO bid?

JUST IN The wait is (nearly) over. After more than a year of ups and downs since Sweden applied to join NATO in May 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has agreed to back Stockholm’s bid to become the Alliance’s thirty-second member. The announcement came on the eve of the NATO Summit in Vilnius after

A looming US-Turkey F-16 deal is about much more than Sweden’s NATO bid

The NATO Summit in Vilnius starting on July 11 will mark milestones in several strategic processes of vital importance to the Alliance. These include assessing progress on the Strategic Concept adopted in Madrid last year, recognizing Finland’s successful accession, debating the path forward on Ukraine’s application, and consideration of the end game towards Swedish membership.

Prospects for US-Turkish convergence on Syria

Syria has been a point of deep contention in US-Turkish relations for the past decade, despite the fact that the two NATO allies have cooperated on diplomatic pressure campaigns against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, humanitarian relief, and refugee assistance. History offers relatively few examples of two countries committed to the same outcome of a war but

What the world should expect from Erdogan now

JUST IN They’re staying the course. A majority of Turkish voters backed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Sunday’s runoff election, earning him another five-year term as president and extending his twenty-year hold on power. Yet the vote for continuity comes amid major changes in and around Turkey, which is still recovering from a devastating earthquake,