Turkey crisis risks souring military ties with US

Both sides stand to lose if US-Turkey military relations go south, but experts say it would hurt Turkey more.

The crisis in US-Turkish relations, which already has put Turkey's economy under massive strain, also risks souring military ties between the two NATO allies, unleashing unknown geopolitical consequences.

US President Donald Trump last week announced new tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum, causing the country's currency to plummet, over his frustration with Ankara's continued detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson.

Then on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote in The New York Times that unless Washington can "reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect," Turkey will "start looking for new friends and allies."

The warning came after Erdogan held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss economic and trade issues, as well as the Syria crisis.

Military ties between Turkey and the US are already fraught over Washington's support to Syrian Kurdish fighters known as the YPG, which Ankara sees as little more than an offshoot of the "terrorist" Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

And tensions were heightened further after Turkey, despite being a NATO ally, entered into an understanding to buy Russia's advanced S-400 air defense system.

Such a move would defy US sanctions on Moscow, and Turkey's increasingly cozy relationship with Putin has alarmed both the US and the European Union.