According to the German news outlet Die Welt Germany blocked Turkey from holding the next NATO summit in 2018. Germany is supported by 10 out of 28 NATO member states in this topic.
The official decision on the location of the next summit will be made in the coming days and was considered a mere formality, expected to conform Erdogan’s invitation voiced in 2016. But now with Germany’s intervention it has become another conflict laden issue, further deepening the rift between Turkey and many Western NATO members.
Germany seems to have shifted it’s foreign policy recently, with Merkel lashing out at the US after the G7 summit, describing them as unreliable as partners and calling for European self determination. The next day German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel even went as far as excluding the US from the West due to it’s “breakdown”.
Last week NATO also altered it’s statutes in reaction to Turkey’s veto against a NATO partnership with Austria. Now Austria is still being blocked, but NATO can at least carry on the cooperations with other partner states, without having to discard Austria from a prior neccessary comprehensive adoption of all partnerships.
According to Die Welt, highranking diplomats within NATO explained the newest move as an attempt to distance NATO from Turkey’s domestic policies: “We do not want to upvalue Turkey internationally and want to avoid the impression, that NATO was supporting the Turkish government’s internal policies.”
