Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds a news conference during a NATO summit in Brussels, June 14, 2021.
Photo:
YVES HERMAN/REUTERS
Every member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has enthusiastically welcomed Finland and Sweden except one: Turkey, which on Wednesday blocked an early vote to begin accession talks. For reasons that are political, parochial and irrelevant to the decision, President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan
has taken a hard line in his efforts to derail the prospective members. This should raise the question of whether Turkey under Mr. Erdogan’s leadership belongs in the alliance.
Similarly, NATO members have shown steadfast resolve since
invasion of Ukraine, except for Turkey. With the exception of permitting the sale of combat drones to Ukraine—a deal between Kyiv and private defense manufacturer
Baykar Makina
that was signed before the war—Ankara has offered little more than noisy diplomacy. Mr. Erdogan has tried to position himself as a broker of peace between Ukraine and Russia, mirroring his previous and similarly ineffectual offer to negotiate with the Taliban during America’s withdrawal last year.
This peacemaker’s posture has provided cover for a pattern of cooperation with Moscow, including Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 missile-defense system from Russia in 2017. Since Russia’s invasion, Mr. Erdogan has refused to send that system to Ukraine, refused to join NATO members’ sanctions…