Erdogan: How to lose friends and alienate people

This article on a Japanese website seems to sum up the disaster for Turkey's foreign relations that is the islamist PM Erdogan. From just over a year ago trumpeting zero problems with any of its neighbours, Turkey now has problems with all of them, and has also realised that the Iranian bomb might threaten his country (just yesterday Turkey announced its joining of the nuclear arms race for 'health' reasons with its new particle accelerator.  It would seem that Erdogan has set his heart on another islamic bomb. Israel should take notice and maybe reformulate 'flame' and 'stuxnet' accordingly). But that little matter doesn't stop islamist Erdogan constantly upping the ante re Israel and Cyprus and threatening war. Nato is heartily sick of him, and his only friend in the world seems to be......... yes you guessed it....... Obama. Obama is the true snake in the grass, professing friendship to Israel at every turn whilst undermining Israel and western allies at every opportunity. Obama's arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Turkey this year alone dwarfs anything Israel will be able to put in the field against them. It's just lucky that whereas Turkey and Saudi Arabia buy weapons off the shelf from the US, Israel puts added value into them.

I would take issue with the authors' statements about Syria being an internal issue as Syria has had its fingers in many pies throughout the middle east, fomented terror and the assassination of a PM of Hariri along with many politicians, bringing about the political ascendancy of Hezbolla. Syria's internal affairs are of interest to all middle eastern nations, whether or not Israel for example decides not to try and involve itself in that bubbling cauldron. But otherwise the article seems to be quite on target.

Turkey has managed to alienate all of its friends with the exception maybe of Azerbaijan, and that only because of Turkey's blockade of Armenia which grabbed Nagorno Karabach off the Azeris in a textbook operation of ethnic cleansing.

Erdogan lambasted Iran by stating that this nation “lacked honesty” and that this country was “losing their international prestige.”

"A former diplomat of Turkey, Sinan Ulgen, commented that “It is his (Erdogan's) posturing that has led to crises with our neighbors. If he hadn’t approached matters in a polarizing, black-and-white fashion, we wouldn’t have lost the ability to manage these relationships.”

“Instead of being the last person to intervene, very often he is the first to react. What he says then becomes policy, and limits Turkey’s room for maneuver; it corners us and policy becomes ossified.”