Turkey Walking The Tightrope With Russia and NATO
Is it time for NATO to rethink Turkey’s membership?
One of the biggest internal issues that NATO addressed over the past year was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s visits to Moscow and Kyiv, where he tried to direct the terms of a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
Ambassadors in NATO were beyond disappointed in Orbán’s ‘rogue’ or unilateral attempt to promote Putin’s own goal — a peace agreement.
In this case, Turkey is not pushing for a peace agreement, nor has it entertained or questioned its current terms.
Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met two weeks ago to solve the war in Syria and improve bilateral trade relations.
This article will lay out and expand on the trade-related details of the meeting.
Additionally, it will explain how an improved Russian-Turkish alliance will put internal pressure on NATO to intervene.
Erdogan and Putin Meeting
The two countries primarily discussed their aim to increase bilateral trade volume from $55 billion to $100 billion.
According to Ezgi Akin from Al-Monitor, a meeting was called to address the…