Trump's shock decision to withdraw troops from Syria has prompted Turkey to launch an offensive against northern Syria – a move that could see the return of ISIS.

Trump's withdrawal from Syria could see resurgence of Islamic State

Turkey is threatening to shut down a NATO air base housing nuclear weapons in retaliation for embarrassing its authoritarian president, Recep Erdogan.

The United States is considering sanctions following a spate of complaints about Turkey’s behaviour.

President Erdogan this year defied NATO security concerns over the purchase of an advanced Russian air-defence system. So Washington cancelled a contract to deliver F-35 stealth fighters.

Then Ankara’s troops surged into Syria to purge ethnic Kurds from its border regions, hot on the heels of retreating US Special Forces.

In recent weeks, Turkish drones have been sent to the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state to impose its claims over oilfields in the Eastern Mediterranean. And talks have been initiated in war-torn Libya over the deployment of Ankara’s troops.

Now, Erdogan is outraged that the US Senate has passed a largely symbolic resolution recognising the mass murder of 1.5 million Armenians in Anatolia a century ago.

Erdogan told local media: “The US Senate’s decision on the so-called Armenian genocide is null and void for Turkey.” He insists the killings were not ethnic cleansing as it was the result of war.

Now, the authoritarian president is fighting back.

He’s threatening to declare the US guilty of genocide for its massacres of Native Americans. And he’s threatening to shut down two critical NATO defence facilities in his country.

“If they are threatening us with the implementation of these sanctions, of course, we will be retaliating.”

NUCLEAR TUG OF WAR

The NATO air base at Incirlik and a radar early-warning station at Kurecik have become political leverage points in the international spat.

Kurecik is a crucial link in a radar chain intended to offer early warning of ballistic missile attack from Russia or Iran.

The Incirlik air base is positioned some 150km from the Syrian border. It has recently served as a staging post for drone attacks against Islamic State.

But it has been the scene of drama in the past, as it is a shared facility and houses a Cold War-era arsenal of US nuclear bombs.

Shortly after a failed coup attempt in 2016, Erdogan supporters threatened to seize the facility amid false claims a US general had orchestrated the uprising.

“In the case of sanctions, we can take steps to close Incirlik and Kurecik,” Erdogan warned. “If the United States continues to act like this, we have steps to take as well.”

A US Defense Department official said the presence of the nuclear weapons at Incirlik symbolised a longstanding defence pact with Turkey. But it’s an increasingly shaky relationship.

In an interview last month, retired US General Chuck Wald questioned the trustworthiness of Erdogan.

“I think that the most pressing concern for the US now is that we have nuclear capabilities at Incirlik that no longer serve the same strategic purpose that they did in the past,” Wald told Bloomberg.

“Given the growing strain of anti-Americanism in Turkey and Erdogan’s willingness to move closer toward Russia, we urgently need to relocate those weapons.”

The issue had been a thorn in NATO’s side now for several years. He said: “Incirlik aside, we’ve seen how Turkey has been actively operating against NATO interests for far too long now.”

BLAME GAME

Washington cancelled the delivery of Turkey’s first F-35 stealth fighters once it took delivery of Moscow’s S-400 missile system. It feared this would result in a detailed radar and infra-red profile of the F-35 supplied to the Russians.

But President Trump in 2017 also issued a law mandating sanctions against countries that buy Russian military products in retaliation for its invasion of Crimea and Ukraine. He is yet to enforce this law against Ankara.

Erdogan says the Senate’s action over Armenia is an attempt to force Trump’s hand.

“We regret that the polarisation in US domestic politics has had negative consequences for us and that some groups abuse developments about our country for their interests to weaken Trump,” he said. “It is very important for both sides that the US does not take irreparable steps in our relations.”

And he said accusations of a systemic Armenian genocide, which happened during the last years of the Ottoman Empire, was hypocritical.

TROUBLED PASTS

“Can we speak about America without mentioning Native Americans?” Erdogan said. “It is a shameful moment in US history.”

Historians put the death toll from the conquest of the Americas – which began with the Spanish conquistadors in the 15th Century and continued through until the American Indian Wars ended in 1924 – at some 55 million. Most were from disease.

Erdogan accused the US of “completely political” motives behind recognising the Armenian genocide.

Punitive legal and military measures against ethnic Kurds within Turkey’s borders and in neighbouring Syria and Iraq were anti-terrorism measures, he said.

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer. Continue the conversation @JamieSeidel