Turkey is heading for a Nato showdown

‘Nato is surrounding Turkey,’ reads a banner flying in Istanbul’s Kadiköy district, on the Eastern side of the water that divides Europe from Asia. ‘Let’s get out of it.’

The sign, featuring American flags scattered across Europe and the Middle East, from Greece to Syria, has appeared across the country’s second city in the run-up to next year’s presidential and parliamentary votes. Paid for and promoted by the Patriotic party, a fringe left-wing nationalist group founded by several former Turkish army generals, it looks more like Russian propaganda than election literature, even recognising the independence of Abkhazia, a Moscow-backed breakaway region of Georgia.

But even if the campaigners behind it can’t expect to win by a landslide, those in power seem to share at least some of their concerns. Turkey’s veteran president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his populist Justice and Development party are locked into an increasingly tense standoff with Nato. It is about to come to a head this week as the bloc’s members meet in Madrid to discuss their response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.