Netherlands Wants NATO To Reconsider Turkey's Membership

Looks like the Netherlands wants Turkey to go Dutch treat--at the very least, the Netherlands does not think Turkey can be trusted to be a member of NATO

The Dutch Freedom Party, the Netherlands’s third largest political party, urged the Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministries last week to reconsider Turkey’s continued membership in NATO.


Geert Wilders, head of the party, and its Mideast expert, deputy Wim Kortenoeven, accused Turkey of abandoning its allies – Israel earlier this year, and now France.

Turkey severed diplomatic and military ties with France last week, over the French parliamentary resolution on the current Turkish government’s reaction to the Ottoman Empire’s massacre of Christian Armenians in 1915. The empire preceded the modern secular Turkish state founded in 1923, and the French deemed the state’s denial that these events represented genocide to be punishable by a monetary fine.

France is a leading member of the NATO military alliance, as is Holland.

Kortenoeven, a leading European specialist on the Mideast and author of several books on the region, told The Jerusalem Post that since Turkey has a short but disturbing history of abandoning allies, it could be a lethal mistake to entrust them with the custody of a crucial element of the new Western/European defense system against nuclear rogue states such as Iran and Pakistan.

Because they are likewise concerned, Israel has cancelled a multi-million dollar defense contract with Turkey:

A defense contract with Turkey worth an estimated $140 million was canceled at the last minute, out of fears that information regarding the aerial surveillance systems to be sold would fall into enemy hands, it was reported on Thursday.A defense contract with Turkey worth an estimated $140 million was canceled at the last minute, out of fears that information regarding the aerial surveillance systems to be sold would fall into enemy hands, it was reported on Thursday.

...Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a leaked speech last year that Ankara's newly appointed intelligence chief was a "friend of Iran" who might betray Israel's secrets.

In September the US praised the deal to install NATO’s American-designed missile shield in Turkey--obviously with Iran in mind, Yet Turkey's foreign minister is reassuring Iran that Turkey will not participate in any "foreign interference" against Iran.

Just how much is NATO risking by trusting Turkey?
Maybe they should take a hint from Israel.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Hamas and Operation Cast Lead.