From the article that you linked (from a year ago): “Turkey has already responded furiously to fellow NATO ally Germany”
Turkey also has lost credibility with the Visegrad Group withing the EU (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia) over the immigrant issue. Historical animosities/distrust are also still alive in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.
The Turkish regime is growing increasingly alienated from Europe.
Yesterday, French President Macron (emerging as de Facto leader of the EU, due to Merkel’s domestic political weakness) had a phone call with Erdogan about his invasion of Afrin. Publicly, Macron has warned Turkey against trying to take territory in Afrin.
Things are coming to a head between Turkey and the EU, as Erdogan pushes for full EU membership - apparently trying to bully his way to acceptance. There will likely be a significant EU-Turkey summit next month in Bulgaria on this issue. Erdogan is in Rome today meting with the Pope.
The timing of the Afrin invasion is disastrous for Turkey’s chances at gaining EU membership - in fact, it threatens an historic break from Turkey seeking EU Membership, which formally started in 2005, and was perhaps the signature policy of Erdogan’s initial rise to power.
Thanks.
And we must consider the downing of the Russian jet in Syria by manpod. The Russians are not yet through analyzing the event and determining the source of the weapon and those involved in it’s delivery.
Suchkov wrote 2 articles in Al Monitory lately about this. And others are making similar observations. It is interesting to read their analysis, some expression indicates they would like to work jointly on anti-Terrorist efforts with the US but then they go into the anti-US mode for a few lines.
Timing of this is very odd. The 3 high ranking Russian intelligence officers were in the US last week. 2 of the 3 required special clearance because of the sanctions placed on them specifically by Obama near the end of his term.