Turkey's bloody 2016 puts West's portal to Middle East in jeopardy
Once the West’s safe, stable and fiercely secular portal into the Middle East, Turkey’s bloody 2016 showed the perils of its position between two worlds.
A dramatic coup attempt, 100 terror attacks that killed more than 500 people, the brazen assassination of a Russian diplomat and a shocking nightclub attack that left 39 dead in Istanbul on the final day of the year underscored the precarious status of the key Muslim nation and NATO member. Turkey’s descent into violence was driven by jihadists and refugees passing each other on their way to and from the killing fields of Syria and Iraq, an increasingly Islamist and authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and terrorists domestic and foreign.
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