Who Needs Whom? Orientalism Meets Its Reckoning in Ankara
Even inside the language of strategic partnership, the West never fully released Türkiye from this category. Through NATO enlargement, EU accession talks, and Middle East policy, Türkiye has been treated as “critical but uncertain,” “indispensable but untrustworthy”, a full member never quite a full European, an ally forever qualified by brackets. This was Orientalist logic wearing diplomatic dress.
