Written by Mahmut Bali AYKAN

Abstract

This work analyzes Turkey and the US foreign policy outlooks before and after the US military intervention in Afghanistan in September 2001 in terms of their respective conceptions of interests, threats and responses to them in the context of Afghanistan. It argues that even though Turkey and the US were able to co-operate in responding to a common challenge in Afghanistan; there were also important underlying differences, from the perspective of the Turks, in the two sides’ respective approaches to the nature of that challenge and what the appropriate responses towards it should be. Understanding these differences should provide a yardstick to better anticipate how US-Turkey relations concerning the US war on global terrorism may evolve in the NATO framework in the future.

Keywords: Afghanistan, NATO, Global War on Terrorism, Turkish-American alliance, ISAF, UN, PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Teams)

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