Once upon a time, Turkey and the Western world led by the United States had close relations, but just as the so-called small boat of friendship was turned over, Turkey is now facing the reality of breaking with the West! Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to expel ten Ambassadors of Western Countries in one fell swoop, which further shows that the contradictions between the United States and Turkey are intensifying in an all-round way!
In the impression of the vast majority of people, Turkey has not been particularly friendly to China and Russia for a long time, but has been very close to the United States. In fact, for a long time in the past, Turkey did pursue a pro-US, anti-Russian and anti-China foreign policy, Turkey is the only NATO member state located in Asia, and even applied to join the European Union many times, and the US military also has many military bases in Turkey. But as British politician Winston Churchill said, there is no eternal friend or eternal enemy in the international political game, and in recent years, U.S.-Turkey relations have deteriorated at an unprecedented rate, so much so that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on October 23 local time that he was ready to expel the ambassadors of ten Western countries, including the United States.
According to the domestic media Russian Satellite News Agency, on October 23, local time, Turkish President Erdogan announced in the capital Ankara that he had ordered the country's Foreign Ministry to list the ambassadors of the United States, France, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden and other ten countries as "undesirable persons" and reminded the ten ambassadors to abide by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The implication is that the Turkish government has officially expelled the ambassadors of these ten countries and asked them to leave as soon as possible. The expulsion of the ambassador is a very serious expression of dissatisfaction and hostility towards the State concerned. And the countries that expelled the ambassadors by the Turkish government this time are basically all Western countries, and most of them are Turkey's NATO allies. This is enough to show that the Western bloc led by the United States is facing an unprecedented risk of disintegration, and the progress of Turkey's break with the West is accelerating as never before.
Why did the Turkish government adopt a tough policy of expelling the ambassadors of ten countries in one fell swoop?
The immediate cause is the Kavala incident. We know that in 2016, some of the Turkish army launched a coup against President Erdogan, and if Erdogan had not received the news in advance and prepared countermeasures, he would have been a prisoner of the junta now. After Erdogan successfully suppressed the coup, he was arrested after discovering that a Turkish entrepreneur and philanthropist named Kavala was suspected of funding the coup forces. After a long trial, the Turkish government is preparing to hold a public trial of Kavala in the near future, and the sentence he will receive is most likely life imprisonment. However, western countries led by the United States believe that Erdogan's government's trial of Kavala is completely "political persecution". So on October 18, the ten countries issued a joint statement collectively pressuring Erdogan to release Kavala.
In fact, before that, Western countries had repeatedly asked Turkey to release Kavala, and this time the joint pressure of the ten ambassadors obviously completely triggered Erdogan's antipathy, which led to the radical action of expelling the ten Western ambassadors.
Of course, the so-called "frozen three feet is not a day's cold", Turkey can directly expel the ambassadors of the ten Western countries in one breath, the Kavala incident is just a fuse, the root cause is still caused by the uneven distribution of interests between the United States and Turkey. We know that Turkey is very different from Western countries in terms of culture, religion and even ethnicity, but why did the United States still include Turkey in the NATO system? This is mainly to counter the Soviet threat, due to geopolitical problems, Turkey and Russia have a history of war that lasts for hundreds of years, and the United States during the Cold War also hopes to form a strategic encirclement of the Soviet Union from the south, so the United States and Turkey immediately hit it off and began to cooperate against the Soviet Union. But after the end of the Cold War, Turkey hoped to expand its influence in West Asia, and some radicals even hoped to restore Turkey's power to the Ottoman Empire. However, the United States regards the Middle East region as one of its core interests, invading Afghanistan and Iraq, increasing the stationing of troops in Turkey, and obviously wants to completely control the Middle East, leaving no room for Turkey to expand its power, which has led to a rift in US-Turkey relations.
Originally, due to policy inertia and various subjective and objective factors, the previous Turkish governments, although there were small frictions and skirmishes between the United States, still followed the United States in the general direction. In 2014, Erdogan, who represented the interests of Turkey's middle and lower classes and conservatives, came to power, which greatly accelerated the process of splitting the US-Turkey relationship. Turkey's economy grew rapidly under Erdogan's rule, and per capita income tripled at one point, thanks to its state-ruled state. With enough economic power, Erdogan naturally hoped to expand his political influence, so Turkey began to frequently fund and support some pro-Turkish forces, and even directly sent its own troops to seize the territory. This behavior naturally caused dissatisfaction in the United States, in fact, the US government's criticism of Erdogan has hardly stopped, and the military coup in 2016 is also considered to be related to the United States. All in all, Turkey's vision of expanding its sphere of influence is now in serious conflict with the United States' goal of world domination and control of the Middle East, which is the root cause of the deterioration of US-Turkey relations.
Speaking of this expulsion of the ambassador, The Astronaut believes that this is most likely an attitude expressed by the Turkish government to express dissatisfaction, and the possibility of expelling all the ambassadors of the ten countries is too small. At present, Erdogan only listed the ambassadors of these ten countries as "undesirables" and did not directly issue an expulsion order, which is obviously leaving room for later easing. According to the principle of "reciprocal countermeasures" in international diplomacy, once Turkey really expels the ambassadors of these ten countries, then these ten countries are bound to expel the Turkish ambassadors in retaliation, and such a price is probably difficult for Turkey to bear. So in the end, the matter is likely to end with Erdogan expelling a few ordinary diplomats. But Turkey's foreign policy has always been known for its capriciousness and arbitrariness, and it's hard to predict what will happen in the end.
However, in any case, the expulsion of the ambassador by Turkey has completely exposed the problem of the division of the Western camp, although the Western camp can still guarantee the same advance and retreat at present, but it is far from monolithic. Although other countries may not fall to China and Russia as quickly as Turkey in the short term, if the United States continues to pursue this policy of not considering the interests of its allies, but only thinking about its own hegemony and even interfering in the internal affairs of its allies, then the final collapse of the Western camp is foreseeable.