Reassessing U.S.-Türkiye Relations: The View from Ankara

At the recent NATO Summit in Ankara, President Trump announced a new opening in U.S.-Turkish ties, with an end to the long-standing sanctions on defense sales. In the latest report from the Center for the National Interest’s Regional Perspectives series, Dr. Hasan Mesut Önder asserts that this is only the start of a process to restore the strategic alliance between the United States and Türkiye. In “Reassessing U.S.-Türkiye Relations: The View from Ankara,” he contends that trust was fundamentally broken between the two sides after the attempted coup of 2016, and has not yet been fully restored.

On a range of issues, America pursued its interests in the region in ways that Turkish officials and elites saw as damaging to Turkish national security. While U.S.-Turkish ties drifted, Ankara pursued other diplomatic and trade relationships, most notably with the United Kingdom. In many ways, Britain has displaced America in influence by demonstrating a shared vision that takes Turkish security concerns into account. Dr. Önder argues that Washington is going to have to do the same if it hopes to regain the ground it has lost over the last decade.

About the Author:

Hasan Mesut Önder received his Ph.D. from Süleyman Demirel University, with a dissertation titled “The Use of Intelligence in the Process of Securitization: The Case of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq.” He is an independent researcher on intelligence studies and Middle East politics, the author of several peer-revered papers in academic journals, and a regular contributor to Türkiye Today.