Turkey–United States relations

The Republic of Türkiye and the United States of America established diplomatic relations in 1927. Relations after World War II evolved from the Second Cairo Conference in December 1943 and Turkey's entrance into World War II on the side of the Allies in February 1945. Later that year, Turkey became a charter member of the United Nations. Since 1945, both countries advanced ties under the liberal international order, put forward by the U.S., through a set of global, rule-based, structured relationships based on political and economic liberalism. As a consequence, bilateral relations have advanced under the G20, OECD, Council of Europe, OSCE, WTO, IMF, the World Bank, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, and NATO.

During the interwar period (1918–1939), Turkey and the United States laid the groundwork for cooperation without a defined strategic interest. The U.S. sent a Congressional delegation to emphasize trade and business, along with non-missionary philanthropy and other cultural enterprises, such as archaeological expeditions sponsored by American universities.

During World War II (1939–1945), oil was set to become increasingly important for American interests. President Roosevelt had a geo-strategic plan in mind at the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement in 1944. His successor, President Truman stressed the importance of Turkey's geo-strategic location and its "proximity to the great natural resources". In the following decades, as the United States has been engaged in oil wars in the Middle East, Turkey has supported the U.S. in some capacity, directly or indirectly, by giving authorization for the use of the Incirlik Air Base. After World War II, the Mandate for Palestine, which was established within the former Ottoman vilayet of Syria after the dissolution and partition of the Ottoman Empire, was terminated by the result of the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948. The United States recognized Israel on 31 January 1949, and Turkey followed suit on 28 March 1949. Four decades later, on 15 November 1988, Turkey recognized the Palestinian Declaration of Independence on the same day it was announced. Even before the Cold War, relations between Turkey and the United States regarding the Middle East were set to a course based on two dimensions: The first dimension was petroleum politics, and the second dimension was the fate of the Palestinians (Palestinian territories and a two-state solution).

During the Cold War (1945–1991), the Turkish Straits crisis of 1945 developed over the request by Joseph Stalin for Soviet military bases in the Turkish Straits as a part of Soviet territorial claims against Turkey, which prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine in 1947. In 1947, the Office of Defense Cooperation Turkey was established as part of the United States Security Assistance Organizations to assist in modernization programs, develop interoperability, promote cooperation, and integrate Turkey into the Western system. As a result of the integration, Turkey became part of the intelligence operations (1960 U-2), and the missile systems (1962 Missile Crisis). At the same time, the geopolitical strategic foreign policy, Containment, caused a response from the Soviet Union in the form of increased communist influence in Turkey. In 1964, President Johnson disclosed the reluctance among Western powers to defend Turkey in what became known as the Johnson letter. The U.S. War on drugs created a backlash when Turkish farm workers employed in poppy production lost their jobs. Anti-Americanism developed among left-wing extremists in Turkey. In 1969, Ambassador Komer's car was set on fire by the Marxist-Leninist Dev-Genç during his visit of Mustafa Kemal Kurdaş at the Middle East Technical University, in which the nascent institution was developed using the aid given by the United States. In the coming years, Turkey became a front for the clashes between far-left and far-right militant groups, as the political violence in Turkey (1976–1980) developed as part of the worldwide incidents of left-wing terrorism aimed at overthrowing the liberal and capitalist governments and replacing them with communist or socialist regimes. According to the U.S. State Department, the United States has an interest in keeping Turkey anchored to the Euro-Atlantic community. During and after the Cold War, the U.S. supported the accession of Turkey to the European Union, as Turkey would be aligned with European norms and standards in many domains.

Over the 2010s, Turkey has evolved into a much more independent geopolitical player, but at the same time, the country became less predictable. As the instability in the region increased, Turkey was also no longer an "island of stability" for the United States, but a source of new, often unexpected impulses on a regional scale.

Following the delivery of the first S-400 missile system from Russia, Turkey was excluded from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program on July 17, 2019, and on December 14, 2020, the U.S. government decided to apply sanctions on Turkey, a NATO member, for violating the CAATSA law of 2017 by purchasing the S-400 missile system from Rosoboronexport, a Russian state agency in the CAATSA sanctions list. The deterioration of bilateral relations was not limited to the military in this period, as evident in the dispute over the Armenian genocide, which the United States formally recognized in 2021.

According to the U.S. Department of State, Turkey has been a key partner for U.S. policy in the surrounding region. Turkey has partnered with the U.S. for security in Afghanistan (ISAF), and serves as NATO's vital eastern and southern anchor, controlling (per the Montreux Convention of 1936) the Turkish Straits, i.e. the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Turkey has contributed and continues to contribute to international security alongside U.S. forces in Europe (e.g. in Bosnia, IFOR, KFOR, Baltic Air Policing, etc.), and the seas bordering the Horn of Africa.

The headquarters of NATO's Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) is in İzmir, Turkey. İzmir also hosted the headquarters of NATO's Allied Air Command İzmir (AIRSOUTH) between 2004 and 2013, when the Allied Air Command (AIRCOM) at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany became the sole Allied Air Component Command of NATO.

Turkey borders Georgia (Russo-Georgian War), Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh conflict), Iraq (Iraqi conflict), Syria (Syrian civil war) and Iran (hostile to the United States since the revolution in 1979). Conflicts in the aforementioned countries have affected the relations between Turkey and the United States.