BRUSSELS:
Turkey's Syria offensive has created fresh divisions within NATO and, while
there is no chance of Ankara being thrown out, the crisis adds to pressures on
the alliance as it heads towards a crucial summit in December. Ankara's assault
on Kurdish forces that played a key role in the fight against the Islamic State
group has drawn widespread international criticism and prompted some NATO countries
to suspend new arms sales.

President Donald Trump has authorized sanctions on Turkish leaders and
re-imposed steel tariffs over the assault, which began last week after
Washington said it would withdraw US forces from northern Syria. Coming amid
growing Western unease at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's strongman style of
government, and after Ankara pressed ahead with the purchase of S-400 missile
systems from Russia in the face of vehement protests from Washington and NATO,
the current crisis adds to Turkey's increasing isolation within the alliance.



The normally guarded NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has repeatedly
voiced his "serious concerns" about the military operation, and the
risk that it could pose to the fight against IS. Alliance defense ministers
would be keen to discuss the matter when they meet in Brussels next week, he
says.

No expulsion
mechanism

US Defense
Secretary Mark Esper has said he will use the meeting to press allies to take
"collective and individual diplomatic and economic measures" to
punish Turkey for its "egregious" actions. But calls from some
quarters for Turkey to be suspended or even kicked out of NATO will lead
nowhere, experts say, because no such mechanism exists in the alliance.

"NATO is limited by what it can do formally to punish Turkey because all
NATO decisions have to be made unanimously, thus Turkey can block any decisions
that criticize or sanction it," Jorge Benitez, a senior fellow at the
Atlantic Council, told AFP. Even if it were practically possible, it is
doubtful whether on balance NATO allies would want to eject Turkey, given its
vital strategic location on the edge of the Middle East, bordering Iran and
across the Black Sea from Russia -- and given Erdogan's recent drift towards
Moscow's orbit.

"But the other allies can still punish Turkey by individually withholding
information from Ankara and choosing to informally meet together without Turkey
at the table," Benitez added. Off-the-book measures of this sort were
taken privately against Portugal at NATO following a coup in 1974, Benitez
said, while the US imposed a three-year arms embargo on Turkey following its
intervention in Cyprus the same year.

European
countries including Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands have announced
they will suspend new arms sales to Turkey in response to the Syria operation.
But there are already doubts about how much practical effect this will have.
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has pointed out that "Erdogan
is not waiting for Europe to provide him with weapons". Some observers
have suggested that if Europe is serious about putting pressure on Erdogan, a
more effective tactic would be to tell citizens not to take holidays in Turkey,
hitting the country's vital tourism industry.

Russian orbit

But with Erdogan
already seemingly disengaging with the West and drifting ever closer to Russian
President Vladimir Putin, NATO countries will want to balance their desire to
take a stand over Syria with Turkey's longer-term value to the alliance.
"On balance it's still better to have Turkey as a nominal ally than as a
potential adversary, probably teaming up with Russia -- that's the unpalatable
situation that NATO finds itself in now," Elisabeth Braw, a senior
research fellow at the RUSI think tank in London, told AFP.

As a military alliance with a clear mission -- the defense of its members'
territory -- rather than a political project like the EU, NATO can take a more
pragmatic, hard-headed view of crises like the present one, Braw said.
"Throughout its history NATO has had to put up with a lot of unattractive
behavior by its different member states and has still remained this successful
military alliance," she said. But with NATO already struggling with
internal divisions -- not least Trump's repeated goading of allies for not
living up to defense spending commitments -- the latest crisis sets the stage
for a dramatic summit in London in December. - AFP