Turkey hopefully on right track to join economic NATO

It is customary for Turkish governments to keep the bar high, endorse a maximalist position and spend unnecessary political capital by asking for the impossible ahead of a negotiation. Thank God; at one stage common sense would prevail (dictated by a better analysis of what is at stake by insisting on the impossible) and Turkey would back down to a more rational line.

It seems this is what happened on the issue of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a free trade agreement being negotiated between the United States and the European Union. Some label it an economic ?NATO.?  It is certainly the economic pillar of the transatlantic community.

When completed, both sides stand to gain tremendously; Europe is expected to register a growth of 4 percent while the U.S. 5 percent. If excluded from the TTIP, Turkey stands to lose, since it has a customs union with the EU without being a member. Turkey is expected to experience a drop of 1.56 percent and some industries like the automotive industry will be negatively affected. This is because, while U.S. goods enter the Turkish market without any barrier, the same would not be valid for Turkey, since Washington is unwilling to negotiate a separate free trade agreement with Turkey.

Aware of the consequences and arguing that there is a custom union, Turkey insisted on becoming a party to the negotiations. Brussels and Washington did not accept having Turkey in the room - not that they did not understand Turkish concerns, but they did not want to have an additional complex component in an already complex web of hurdles to overcome.

According to Sinan Ülgen the chairperson of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), Turkey has recently changed its strategy...