Please join us on Wednesday, May 8 to hear Dr. Chris Kilford discuss: “NATO and Turkey: Past, Present... Future?”. 

Since the current Turkish government came to power in late 2002, Turkey has increasingly been seen by NATO and the United States as the organization's “odd-man out”.   Turkey has been a generally reliable partner since joining NATO in 1952, although there is no question that historically the relationship was often strained when Ankara believed its interests at risk.  As a NATO member, Turkey also faces several unique challenges.  It is largely surrounded by unstable neighbours.  It is the only NATO country confronting a destructive and demoralizing domestic insurgency led by the Kurdish PKK, and according to the Turkish government the PYD, a Syrian affiliate of the PKK supported by the United States, also poses a threat to Turkey. Turkey, in addition, is the only NATO country to recently experience an attempted military coup in which members of the armed forces, for the first time in a long history of coups, directly killed their fellow citizens.  During his talk, Chris will look back at the military's role in Turkey, the rise of the AKP party under Erdogan, the 2016 attempted coup and discuss contemporary and what future NATO-Turkey relations might look like.

Visit our Facebook page to RSVP to the event: https://www.facebook.com/CIDPqueens/