Global Geopolitical Series: Turkey continues to drift away from western alliance

According to reports earlier this week, the United States has been urging its allies across the world to stop importing Iranian oil by November this year. The reports were somewhat confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley visited India and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss looming sanctions on Iran. India is the second largest buyer of Iranian crude after China.

However, United States’ (possibly former) ally Turkey, which is also a member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced that it would continue to import Iranian crude despite looming U.S. sanctions. The very first tranche of the sanctions will be re-imposed on Iran beginning August, with the rest being implemented by the end the year. Trump has even promised to make the sanctions harsher than ever.

This is not the only case, where Turkey has taken a stance against the U.S. policy direction. The confrontation has heated up in recent times. While Turkey and the United States possibly reached a deal over U.S. support for Kurdish forces in Syria, which Turkey views are terrorists, the two countries remain at odds over the latter’s purchase of Russia arms and missile defense systems. Recently congress blocked U.S. arms sales to Turkey. The bitter confrontation increased several folds as the United States moved to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Turkey is almost leading the resistance from the Islamic world.

In addition to the confrontation with the United States, the European Union announced that Turkey’s accession talks are in deadlock as Turkey allegedly moving away from the ideologies of the European Union and its principles.

Turkey is slowly becoming a part of the Russia-Iran alliance as it drifts away from the west.