Is Turkey turning its back on the US?

On a cool day in Istanbul the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge was opened to much fanfare. Hundreds, if not thousands, came to watch Turkey’s President Erdogan unveil a masterpiece in design and engineering. Named after the conquering Ottoman Sultan who expanded the Empire into the Middle East, it has been billed as a ‘bridge to the future’ for the city and the country. But while this third bridge over the Bosphorus may connect the European and Asian Continents once more, the same can’t be said for Turkey with many of its own communities nor its allies.

In an off-the-cuff rambling speech the President used the opportunity to reiterate his core message. ‘We are on a mission and we will keep going,’ he said. ‘Faith is such a big power…we worked hard and God gave us the results,’ he continued. I imagine this is the sort of speech Sultan Selim may have given when his forces massacred thousands of Alevi’s during those conquests in the 1500’s.