Austin Bay writes:
I think it's quite fair to conclude that an election that sends Sultan Recep into retirement would ensure Turkish membership in NATO. As a bonus, the Turkish Air Force would get to fly the F- 35 with pride. (Good rumor has it the Turkish pilots who've flown it like it.)
Turkey brings a lot to NATO. Full Turkish partnership damages several international bad actors, first and foremost Vladimir Putin's crooked Russian regime. The overt record shows that since 2008, Czar Vlad has made disrupting and damaging NATO a Kremlin priority. Robust Turkish NATO membership also stymies Iran's robed Islamist dictators.
In late June 2019, Turkish voters in Istanbul began unwinding the source of the F-35/S-400 controversy, Sultan Recep.
As I've said, we have an Erdogan crisis and not an S-400 crisis.
I hope the Istanbul election is the first step. But I don't think the sultan will go willingly or easily.
UPDATE: Erdogan may have hoped to persuade Trump to green light the F-35 and S-400, but that's a no go:
Turkey's purchase of a major Russian missile defence system is "a problem", US President Donald Trump told his Turkish counterpart at a Saturday meeting on the sidelines of the G20.
Washington has made clear it opposes the purchase of the Russian S-400 system, giving Turkey until July 31 to give up the deal, which it considers incompatible with Ankara's participation in the F-35 fighter jet programme.
Of course, the real problem is that Erdogan's Turkey is incompatible with full participation in NATO.
