1 TURKEY-EU-US TRIANGLE IN PERSPECTIVE: TRANSFORMATION OR CONTINUITY? Ziya Öniş and Şuhnaz Yılmaz* Revised Draft-December 2004 The first major war of the 21 st century lasted only 21 days. Yet, it left a tremendous mark not only in Iraq and the volatile Middle East, but it also intensified the already emerging transatlantic rift and set the Turkish-American alliance on a troublesome path. The military victory came rather quickly for the US. However, translating military victory into a political one and achieving long-term peace and stability, as well as restoring the delicate balance of the Turkey-EU-US triangle proves to be a much more challenging task for all the parties concerned. Turkey has been an important ally of the United States throughout the Cold War era. With the end of the Cold War and the absence of the Soviet threat, Turkey’s geo-strategic importance came under increasing scrutiny. After a temporary interlude in the early 1990s, however, the strategic partnership between the two countries was restored on novel grounds. Yet, Turkish- American relations came under severe challenge during the early months of 2003 in the context of the War on Iraq, following the failure of the Turkish Parliament on March 1 to authorize the deployment of US troops to Iraq via Turkish territory. Clearly, this was interpreted as a major blow by the Bush administration resulting in a serious setback in the long-standing partnership. What is interesting for our purposes is the impact of this rupture in Turkish-US relations on Turkey’s relations with the European Union. The relevance of this