"Erdogan faces US stick, Kurdish rebel upsurge, yet clings to anti-Israel stance
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 26, 2010, 2:44 PM (GMT+02:00)
As he took off for the G20 summit opening in Toronto Saturday, June 26, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan came under an exceptionally acerbic US rebuke for a NATO member. He was accused of alienating the US and the West and told he needed to demonstrate Ankara's commitment to their (NATO) partnership by Philip Gordon, top US diplomat on European affairs, in a clear rejection of the Turkish prime minister's assertion in parliament Tuesday June 15: 'There's no shift in Turkey's axis. Turkey is not a city state, it's not a state on which agendas are imposed,' he said.
Taking Turkey to task for opposing the new UN sanctions on Iran and its anti-Israel rhetoric over the pro-Palestinian flotilla incident, the US official pointed out: 'There are people asking questions about it in a way that is new, and that in itself is a bad thing that makes it harder for the United States to support some of the things that Turkey would like to see us support.'"
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