The minimum you must know
Turkey shares the Black Sea with Ukraine and Russia. The country is a unique member of the NATO alliance that has maintained friendly relations with Russia throughout its history, while maintaining a mutual protection treaty with the United States and the European Union.
Turkey is currently being considered for European Union membership, which it may very well receive. Turkey hopes to maintain great relations with countries that the United States and Europe traditionally view as security competitors anyway, including Iran and Russia, after years of successful diplomacy and countless successful peace talks.
Historically, Turkey's foreign policies have been aligned with NATO's, except in a few small but notable ways. Most importantly, Turkey has always withheld support for the Jewish government in Israel, which NATO happily provides. Turkey has also withheld agreement with Cyprus over ownership and governance of land there. Cyprus gained European Union Membership before Turkey. But probably Europe doesn't want to influence Cyprus-Turkish relations anyway.
Turkey is exceedingly well led for reasons that will become clear in this article. Turkey is currently at peace with virtually every nation in the world.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
President of the
Republic of Türkiye
(United Nations 78th Session)
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a tremendously talented leader and diplomat who has led one of the most compassionate efforts to house refugees in the history of the world. Turkey had to burden an exodus of refugees from neighboring Iraq and Syria over the past two decades. (Perhaps some Iraqis and Syrians continue to settle as "Turkish nationals" in nearby Cyprus, creating an incorrect impression in Cyprus of Turkish settlement intentions there. Clearly the Turkish and Cyprus governments are at peace with each other, and there’s every reason for them to only have improving relations - with both countries becoming even more welcome into the European Union.)
Turkey has done a lot for Europe to house refugees that would have otherwise taken up residence throughout the continent. Many extraordinary Syrian people lost everything when NATO sanctioned the Syrian banking system a decade ago. So a culture of sharing and helpfulness developed among them. Turkey took in extraordinarily ethical people as a result, providing housing to four million sensitive needy people, who would have otherwise overwhelmed Europe.
To give you a sense of the sentiments in the region, Syrians now help each other every way they can. People avoid taking from each other as a very strict matter of moral decency. And you can sense hurt emotions from the facial expressions of people when the possibility of taking surfaces in conversation or western media. Syrian antique stores in Turkey are very beautiful - like valuable art exhibits - because they’re filled with prized possessions people almost gave away to support themselves. Syrians in Turkey have to be far more careful with what they do have than people in many other cultures.
Turkey has helped great people a lot, and remained very vibrant and successful under President Erdoğan's leadership. He correctly led one of the most vast and successful humanitarian efforts in the past century to house, clothe and feed an astonishing number of people. He simultaneously led one of the most successful diplomatic efforts to align with NATO while remaining entirely at peace and to enjoy improving relations with the other side.
Europe developed its own refugee burden as well. So Europe may want to continue to contribute economically to Turkey's humanitarian housing efforts, so that refugees might remain there. Europe should also prefer prosperity for people in ALL potential departure countries.
Turkey, on the other hand, should be prepared for the surprising possibility that Europeans may move into Turkey in large numbers (in addition to countless Syrians and Iraqis!) when Turkey receives E.U. membership. Turkey has more desirable weather than the rest of Europe, and very enjoyable neighborhoods with lower than European costs. So European Union Membership may actually create an additional housing burden on the traditionally Turkish population, as desirable as the prospect of E.U. membership may be.