{"id":185741,"date":"2017-11-18T05:27:01","date_gmt":"2017-11-18T02:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/tr\/content\/?p=185741"},"modified":"2017-11-18T05:27:01","modified_gmt":"2017-11-18T02:27:01","slug":"turkey-abandons-nato-drill-over-portrayal-as-the-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2017\/11\/18\/turkey-abandons-nato-drill-over-portrayal-as-the-enemy\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey abandons Nato drill over portrayal as the enemy"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_185869\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-185869\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-185869\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/tr\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/ataturk-flag-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/ataturk-flag-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/ataturk-flag.jpg 660w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-185869\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Modern Turkey\u2019s founder was reportedly used to illustrate the enemy in the exercise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Turkey has pulled its troops out of a Nato exercise in Norway over an alleged insult to its political leaders.<\/p>\n<p>Reports said that an image of the &#8220;enemy&#8221; in the mock exercise was actually a photo of modern Turkey&#8217;s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish media also reported that a fake social media account in the name of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was used to send anti-Nato messages.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey withdrew all 40 of its participating troops in response.<\/p>\n<p>The country has the second largest military force in Nato, and is involved both in coalition efforts against so-called Islamic State and in Nato&#8217;s Afghanistan mission.<\/p>\n<p>Norway&#8217;s Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen issued a statement of apology for the incident, which he blamed on a single individual.<\/p>\n<p>He said the messages had been sent on the private computer network used in the drill, &#8220;and in no way&#8221; reflected Norway&#8217;s views.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish broadcaster NTV said that one person involved was a Norwegian officer of Turkish descent.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Purged: The officers who cannot go home to Turkey<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Turkey row: Why has Erdogan riled Nato allies?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But Mr Bakke-Jensen said the Norwegian involved was an external contractor hired for the exercise, and he had been removed from his role. An investigation is under way, he added.<\/p>\n<p>Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also issued an apology, calling Turkey a valued member of the military alliance.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Turkey&#8217;s military and strategic importance, given its borders with Syria, Iraq, and Iran, relations with Western nations have been under stress over the past few years.<\/p>\n<p>President Erdogan was openly embroiled in diplomatic spats with Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands earlier this year when they restricted public political rallies of expatriate Turks.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Turkey has pursued a closer relationship with Russia, with which it has also co-operated on air strikes in Syria.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey&#8217;s candidacy for membership of the European Union has also effectively stalled, and the union was critical of President Erdogan&#8217;s crackdown on academia and the judiciary following an attempted military coup last year.<\/p>\n<p>In its wake, a number of Turkish officers posted to Nato requested asylum &#8211; and have been unable to return home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkey has pulled its troops out of a Nato exercise in Norway over an alleged insult to its political leaders. Reports said that an image of the &#8220;enemy&#8221; in the mock exercise was actually a photo of modern Turkey&#8217;s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Turkish media also reported that a fake social media account in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4092,"featured_media":185869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-185741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-nato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}