The EU long ago snubbed Turkey, well before the autocratic tendencies of Erdogan appeared. If the EU reached out then and put Turkey officialy on a path to membership, it may have helped turn the course. Erdogan saw that he got a better reception aligning towards the Muslim middle east than secular Europe.
It takes two to tango. Subsequent Turkish governments basically refused to address the problems of both Cyprus and Kurdistan. Northern Cyprus in particular needs a real roadmap to normalization, you can't ask the EU to include "far west" territories. Everything else could have been sorted out one way or the other.
If we had accepted turkey in europe, nothing says we wouldn't have ended up with the exact same situation, except without border control between us and them.
The true oppressors for many decades, good riddance.
"The hard truth is that Turkey is now the new Saudi Arabia"
Bollocks. Have you been to both countries? it is like day and night. Google the covers of "Penguen dergisi" or "Leman dergisi" or "Lombak dergisi", "uykusuz dergisi" some popular weekly caricature magazines in Turkey.
Current government had made many big mistakes, some unforgivable ones related to internet and freedoms but your comments are utter bs.
That's not the point. The point is that, from a NATO point of view, they are both necessary allies but also de-facto adversaries on many chessboards. It's not a secret that Turkey is helping IS in the Kurdish regions, for example; like it's not a secret that SA helps radical militias the US reportedly opposes. They simply have different long-term strategic objectives from NATO's, including a different view of the role of religion as instrument of power.
Because they keep splitting Kurdish territory, weakening Kurdish positions that are instrumental if Kurds are ever to get full statehood -- which would would immediately result in claims over currently-Turkish territory as part of independent Kurdistan. Enemy of my enemy...
> BTW SA is not a Nato member
Not strictly-speaking, but in practice it's one of the staunchest US allies in the region, on par with Israel. The US built a lot of installations there in the last 20 years, then relinquished them to SA and proceeded to sell them Nato-grade weaponry. If shit started to fly with Putin tomorrow, Saudi Arabia would be on NATO's side, no question.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better about it. The fact is that they did revolt, and they were massively repressed. It happened just before Ukraine blew up; and nobody in the US establishment cared one little bit.
Ataturk is long dead. The secular army and judiciary have been cut to size by de-facto dictator Erdoğan, who uses Islam in the way less-enlightened countries have done for decades now. The hard truth is that Turkey is now the new Saudi Arabia: a country NATO cannot live without, but ruled by people supporting interests and values very different from official "Western" ones.
The view here in Europe is that we've basically given up on Turkey as a secular partner, and they will never be allowed to join the EU while Erdogan is around; but NATO can't do without them, and that's a big problem.