‘US pressure behind Turkey’s NATO move’

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Faruk Loğoğlu, DHA photo

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) indicated Dec. 24 that U.S. pressure might be behind Turkey’s partial lift of its veto on Israel’s participation in NATO partnership programs, in response to some NATO members’ lifting their vetoes on partnership activities with Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and countries in the Balkans and Caucasus.

“For a long time, [the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP)] foreign policy has not been a policy which protects Turkey’s national interests and which assumes them as its indispensable priority. It has turned into a policy which is conducted according to the suggestions of foreign powers,” CHP Deputy Chair Faruk Loğoğlu, a former undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry, said in a written statement.

Loğoğlu recalled that Israeli media had claimed that Turkey’s partial lifting of its veto had come as Turkey’s request NATO station Patriot missile batteries along its border with Syria was granted.

“As stated by sources closely involved with the issue, the demand for lifting the veto against Israel has been directly conveyed to the AKP government by the U.S. administration and the AKP said ‘yes’ to this,” he said.

Since the government has not been sharing all of the information it has regarding its foreign policy moves, it is not possible to make a healthy assessment, Loğoğlu said, while not excluding the accuracy of the claims he listed above.

The AKP should make a detailed explanation regarding both Patriot deployment and recent development on Israel, otherwise it will have to be assumed that the related claims are true, he said.