TURKEY PERSPECTIVE

The Daily Sabah produces the most comprehensive coverage in the Turkish pool. A NATO member perpetually in tension with Washington, Ankara reads the crisis with a mix of quiet satisfaction and strategic concern. The paper details Trump's remarks with particular attention to one phrase: 'Beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe. And I didn't do a big sale. I just said Hey, you know, I didn't insist too much. I just think it should be automatic.'

This 'it should be automatic' is the heart of the transatlantic misunderstanding. Trump treats the Alliance like a service contract, not a mutual defense treaty. The Daily Sabah notes NATO refused to help reopen Hormuz, through which 20% of global oil transits. For Turkey — which controls the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits — the question of maritime passages is a matter of vital sovereignty.

The Daily Sabah's tone is fascinating: neither pro-Trump nor pro-NATO, but calculating. Turkey has its own grievances with the Alliance (sanctions over the S-400 purchase, Western support for Syrian Kurds). Erdogan can use NATO's weakening to renegotiate his own position within the Alliance — or threaten to leave too, this time with an American precedent to invoke.