Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm
In recent years Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been relentless in his efforts to deliver on a secret promise he made to his inner circle a decade ago, which was to disrupt the NATO alliance when he had a chance and consolidate his power.
Ahead of the upcoming summit of NATO leaders on June 14 in Brussels, President Erdoğan’s track record shows that he has to some extent fulfilled his promise by driving a wedge between NATO allies and Turkey on a number of issues.
The promise was uncovered in 2011 by Turkish investigators who were probing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force network in Turkey.
“When I get a chance, I know what to do with NATO, Europe and Israel. I’m going to f*ck their mothers. NATO and the US are as terrorist as Israel,” Erdoğan, then prime minister and running the government, told his loyalist lawmakers in a private meeting.
