Why the views of ordinary Turks to the war in Ukraine should matter to the West

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western policymakers have watched Erdogan’s balancing act between Turkey’s NATO allies and Russia closely, seeing the war as an opportunity to pull Ankara back into the Western fold.

As a result, several NATO countries have helped boost Erdogan’s image in recent weeks with diplomatic visits and new offers of previously off-limits arms deals.

Merve Tahiroglu, the Turkey program coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy, joins Thanos Davelis today to argue that instead of focusing solely on Erdogan’s balancing act, Western policymakers should be paying attention to the attitudes of ordinary Turks to the war.