“Where is NATO, where is Turkey in NATO?”

From the Milliyet’s columnist, Kadri Gürsel, on the NATO/US missile-defense radar to be constructed near Kürecik. Translated by the Hürriyet:

It is only legitimate to ask this question at this point and time: Why would Turkey want, with such persistence, to protect that information from Israel, the one that would enable an earlier extinction while in air of a nuclear head that would cause immense civilian losses underneath it wherever it explodes?

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) diplomacy was not able to give a satisfactory answer to this question to this day. I assume this attitude stems from the efforts of the AKP government’s trying to establish an internal consistency in its Middle East policy: On the one hand it is trying to create political power and legitimacy in the Middle East by forming a relationship of contention with Israel, even daring a military conflict, at least in statements, while on the other hand it wishes not to have the image of supporting Israel’s strategic defense.

But Gürsel doesn’t go the extra mile to mention that it is by no means in the interest of Turkey to let Israel get nuked—that’d look bad for Turkey. The exercise of control over the radar information (with regard to Israel) is no more than a matter of “internal consistency” and an attempt to “create … legitimacy” in the eyes of its Middle Eastern audience.

Put simply, it’s just politics.