MONDAY 5 AUGUST 2019

Russia has groomed Turkey right

under the west’s nose

Russian S-400 missile hardware was delivered to Ankara in June (Reuters)

BORZOU DARAGAHI

To diplomats in London, Washington, Paris and Brussels, it’s Turkey that is the

belligerent actor. It has defied Nato rules by buying Russian weaponry, part of a

pattern of Ankara drifting away from western norms under its president, Recep

Tayyip Erdogan.

To much of Turkey, it’s the west that has betrayed it, writing off its security concerns and European
aspirations because of surging Islamophobia. But there is another pattern at work in Turkey that many
observers on both sides have missed, one that is familiar to those that have watched the Balkans and eastern
Europe over the last few years.

Voices