USA - The United States and Turkey are on a collision course. Although the two countries have been NATO allies for nearly 70 years, that partnership has gradually deteriorated over the past few years, as Washington wondered if it could rely on Turkey and Ankara feared that the United States didn't take its security concerns seriously. In the last six months, however, relations have taken a real nose-dive. In July, Turkey acquired advanced Russian air defense systems over US objections, and in October, it targeted Syrian Kurdish militias allied with the United States as part of an incursion into northern Syria.
The United States responded to both developments with indignation and a raft of punitive measures: the administration of US President Donald Trump refused to deliver advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, sanctioned senior Turkish officials, and raised tariffs on Turkish steel exports, while Congress advanced legislation that would impose powerful sanctions on Turkey’s defense industry, called for an investigation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s finances, and overwhelmingly passed a resolution — for the first time in both houses of Congress — recognizing the 1915 massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. Some in Washington are now questioning Turkey’s continued membership in NATO, even though the alliance has no mechanism for expelling a member.
Turkey, in turn, has angrily insisted that it will not back down. It has threatened to buy even more Russian defense equipment, retaliate against US tariff increases, and expel US forces from two critical military bases in Turkey. The latter threat has prompted the United States to explore moving strategic assets out of Turkey and expanding defense cooperation with Greece and some of Turkey’s Gulf rivals, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Turkey is a strategically located Muslim-majority country with NATO’s second-largest military. As fraught as relations may be at the moment, US interests will suffer if the relationship between the two countries breaks down completely, or if Turkey becomes an actual adversary of the United States. The only actors who would benefit from a deeper rift are those — including Iran and Russia — who want to pull Turkey away from Western powers. That is an outcome the United States must seek to avoid.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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