Relationship dossier
Turkey
United Kingdom
Relationship assessment
NATO allies with trade and defense cooperation, alongside disagreements over security and regional issues.
Turkey toward United Kingdom
+35Turkey maintains cooperation with the United Kingdom through NATO and concluded a bilateral post-Brexit trade agreement. The two governments have also pursued defense-industrial collaboration, including work connected to Turkey’s fighter-aircraft program.
United Kingdom toward Turkey
+35The United Kingdom cooperates with Turkey through NATO and concluded a post-Brexit trade agreement with the Turkish government. British defense-industry participation in Turkey’s fighter-aircraft program has also provided a channel for bilateral defense cooperation.
Overall relationship
+35The relationship rests on sustained NATO cooperation, a bilateral trade framework and defense-industrial links. These provide a substantial basis for partnership, while differing positions on Cyprus and security questions, including Turkey’s S-400 acquisition, prevent the relationship from being uniformly aligned.
How to read these scores
Scores are rough judgments, not objective measurements or current verification. Directional scores describe government policy and conduct, not public opinion. The overall score is an independent estimate, never an average.
- −100
- Extreme sustained hostility
- −50
- Substantially adversarial
- 0
- Mixed or neutral, supported by knowledge
- +50
- Substantially cooperative
- +100
- Exceptionally close sustained partnership
“Not assessed” means there is no recorded score. Pair existence makes no claim about diplomatic recognition or established relations.
Relationship context
Overview
Turkey and the United Kingdom are NATO allies and maintain substantial bilateral cooperation, including a post-Brexit trade agreement and defense-industrial collaboration. Their partnership is tempered by disagreements and differing positions on issues including Cyprus and Turkey’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 air-defence system.
Areas of tension
- Differences over Cyprus, where the United Kingdom is a guarantor power and Turkey supports the Turkish Cypriot administration.
- Turkey’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 air-defence system has raised security concerns among NATO allies, including the United Kingdom.
Key developments
Turkey and the United Kingdom signed a post-Brexit free trade agreement to preserve preferential trade arrangements after the United Kingdom left the European Union.
Major uncertainties
- The scope and implementation of later trade-agreement modernization efforts are unclear.
- The practical extent of defense-industrial cooperation has varied across projects.