NATO ally Turkey is once again in turmoil as President Erdoğan escalates his crackdown on political opposition ahead of the 2028 presidential election, but the geopolitical alliance has few options to punish the drift toward authoritarianism or marginalize the Eurasian nation from the democracy-protecting pact it joined over 70 years ago.

“Under the current rules, and just by the design of NATO, there’s fundamentally no way of excluding or terminating membership status from any country,” non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Sinan Ciddi, tells The New York Sun. “Once you’re in, you’re in.” 

On March 18, Mr. Erdoğan’s main rival, Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu of Istanbul, was disqualified from running for the presidency after his university diploma was abruptly revoked, a constitutional requirement for high office. 

The next day, Mr. Imamoğlu was arrested on corruption and terrorism charges, sparking mass protests across 55 provinces — the largest demonstrations in over a decade. The government responded with more than 1,400 arrests and further charges against opposition leaders in Istanbul and other municipalities.

It was hardly the first politically motivated crackdown since Mr. Erdogan’s ascendance. The president’s 22-year tenure has been marked by arrests of journalists and professors, manipulation of election rules to invalidate winning political candidates, and solitary control by his party over election counts, all coupled with years of strategy counter to Washington’s interests. 

It’s enough to fray the alliance’s cohesion.

“NATO should have democratic standards. Erdoğan’s policies in Turkey are not in line with those standards,” says the former editor of Turkey’s largest newspaper, Zaman, Abdülhamit Bilici, whose paper was shuttered by Mr. Erdoğan in 2016.

“I think if Turkey were applying to join NATO today, it would be almost impossible to be accepted without fulfilling the criteria,” Mr. Bilici tells the Sun.

NATO’s Founding Principles 

NATO, a 32-member military alliance founded in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union, once welcomed members with questionable democratic credentials. Turkey joined the transatlantic organization during the Korean War when Washington prioritized military strategy over political ideals. At the time, NATO included dictatorships like Portugal and Greece, reflecting a willingness to overlook domestic repression in the name of collective defense.

After the Soviet collapse, however, NATO shifted its mission toward promoting democracy over defending it, even as some of its lead members engaged in controversial military actions at home and abroad. 

Turkey is considered “Not Free” by global watchdog Freedom House and ranks a dismal 158th out of 180 countries in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders. 

“NATO requires applicant countries to be functioning democracies. Turkey no longer meets even the most basic definition of that,” Mr. Ciddi said.  

Antithetical to Western Interests 

Once a fragile democracy overseen by a secularist military, Mr. Erdoğan has grabbed power through constitutional changes, dismantling of military oversight, and promotion of officers who are loyal to his “Ottoman” ideology.  As some geopolitical observers warn, some of these appointees may secretly work against NATO in future conflicts by blocking or refusing to support missions that go against Turkey’s goals.

Tensions between NATO and Turkey span multiple security fronts. The president’s complex yet close ties with Russia — including arms purchases, resistance to sanctions, and limits to NATO actions in the Turkish-controlled region of the Black Sea — undermine the alliance’s unity, especially as Russia remains its primary military threat. 

At the same time, Mr. Erdoğan’s open and staunch support for Hamas, which most NATO countries consider a terrorist group, further isolates Turkey from its allies and raises doubts about Ankara’s reliability in future conflicts. 

In addition, Turkish military operations against the Washington-backed Syrian Democratic Forces — viewed by Ankara as an extension of the long-held terrorist outfit, the Kurdistan Workers Party — have at times endangered American personnel and complicated counter-ISIS efforts. 

In the eastern Mediterranean, Mr. Erdoğan has also challenged NATO ally Greece and European Union member Cyprus over maritime boundaries and natural gas exploration. 

No Mechanisms for Expulsion 

The North Atlantic Treaty signed more than 75 years ago, does not include a provision for removing a NATO member, and no legal process exists to expel one. Although NATO has never removed a member, countries like France and Greece have temporarily stepped away from certain functions. 

“There are ways to sideline members: for example, if NATO were serious about taking action against Turkey, they could withhold intelligence sharing, exclude them from operational activities, things like that,” Mr. Ciddi surmised. “But even that is unlikely because right now, everyone is too scared of the Russian threat.”

While NATO could exclude Turkey from decision-making, it could still benefit from mutual defense under Article V, the collective defense clause, though that would further complicate the relationship. 

Any attempt to sideline a member like Turkey would require a membership vote declaring it in breach of the Washington Treaty. This would avoid expulsion, but prevent an appeal to international organizations like the United Nations, which has no jurisdiction over NATO.

Some have suggested creating a new NATO framework without Turkey, as discussed in President Macron’s 2018 European Army proposal, although it struggled with the practicality of excluding key members like America or Canada. Mr. Bilici says that plan does not fix the domestic issues at the root of the problem.

“I always emphasize that getting rid of Turkey or destroying the alliance is not the solution and will not help the Turkish people. Instead, we should be asking Turkey to meet NATO’s criteria,” Mr. Bilici said. “Western friends of Turkey — Democratic friends in Europe, America, and Canada — should be candid and say, ‘This is not acceptable.’ But that kind of honesty isn’t happening.”

Experts concur that revisiting NATO’s founding principles to address modern threats and include an expulsion stipulation is a non-starter. 

“The NATO Treaty is what it is. To change it requires unanimous consent from all members—which, since 1952, has effectively been dead on arrival,” said Mr. Ciddi. 

Washington’s Position

Human rights groups have raised concerns and defense analysts have expressed worry, yet the Trump administration has maintained a muted stance on the situation in Turkey.

President Trump praised President Erdoğan’s role as a host for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine on Thursday and ultimately conceded to Mr. Erdoğan’s request to lift sanctions on Syria. At the same time, Turkey played host to the NATO foreign ministers’ informal talks, attended by Secretary of State Rubio.

“Turkey is in a geographically strategic location and is a useful partner to the United States for its ability to work with many different countries, including Russia and China, and to act as a mediator and go-between,” senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, Jennifer Kavanagh, tells the Sun. 

“Relative to its neighbors, it is pretty stable and acts as a bulwark against the spread of turbulence in the Middle East.”

America and the European Union rely on Turkey for its military capabilities and migration management. 

“Turkey’s location and military power are significant — especially with discussions about the U.S. stepping back from NATO. Turkey has one of the most formidable military forces at a very strategic location: neighboring Russia, Syria, Iraq — all key conflict zones,” Mr. Bilici surmised. “It is very valuable for NATO. But this value shouldn’t be used by Erdoğan as a license to create an autocracy.”

Ms. Kavanagh, however, stressed that America should “not get involved in the domestic politics of foreign countries,” and instead should “be considering its own future in NATO, an alliance that has served its purpose and now acts as more of a burden on Washington than a strategic benefit.”

“If the United States stays in NATO, expelling Turkey would be a strategic mistake and a short-sighted and narrow-minded move better suited to the era of American primacy than today’s multipolar world,” she continued.

Any NATO member can leave at any time. Despite often disagreeing with other members, Turkey, too, has a strong interest in staying in the alliance.

“Turkey uses NATO as a means to get what it wants out of the U.S. and Europe,” Mr. Ciddi said. 

“On the other side of the balance sheet, some will argue Turkey is still an ally — on paper — and we can’t alienate it. If things escalate with Russia, we’d still need Turkey. It provides critical airspace over the Middle East, has valuable intelligence-gathering infrastructure on its soil, and hosts NATO Ground Forces Command.”