So far, much of the attention on Turkey’s Gezi Park protests has focused on domestic politics, on tactical errors by both sides, or on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s electoral motives.
As the cycle of protests and repression winds down, it is time to look at the international dimension of the demonstrations. That doesn’t mean the claim that Turkey is the victim of a foreign conspiracy, or the many statements by the UN and international NGOs, but the real impact of the crisis on Turkey’s relations with the United States and the EU.
The U.S. administration entertains a security-based relationship with the Erdoğan government. So it is not surprising that the words from Washington have been softer than those from Berlin, Brussels, or Stockholm. What matters most for the United States is ensuring that its main interests are served; these include the Incirlik air base, the U.S. missile defense shield, a normalization of Turkish-Israeli relations, and the NATO shield against Syria. The United States is also keen to dissuade Ankara from taking any autonomous initiatives on Syria.
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