ABSTRACT
Turkey’s membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is generally regarded as the key to the rest of its international relations. Turkey’s special regional interests, however, notably those in Cyprus, affected its notions of military integration and operational authority. During the early years of Turkish membership of the alliance, there was also some unease at possible discrepancies between the ‘all-out strategy to be employed by NATO’ and Turkey’s strategic requirements. Jupiter missiles were stationed on Turkish soil after Turkey joined the NATO command and remained their until the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s. The role of intelligence-gathering in Turkey’s relations with NATO and the USA appears to be considerable and has reportedly increased since the fall of Iran, though its extent can only be surmised. Turkey’s membership of NATO creates in Turkish public opinion an expectation of psychological parity with the West which clashes with perceptions of relative economic backwardness and political isolation.
