By Brian Beary, Washington Correspondent for EuroPolitics
“If there is no interest, any relationship will come to an end.” A stark warning from Turkey's EU affairs minister, Volkan Bozkir, on a trip in February to Washington, acknowledging the drift in Turkey's relations with its European Union and United States. Having spent decades trying to ensconce itself in the transatlantic community, joining NATO in 1952 and entering a customs union with the EU in 1996, Turkey's westward alignment is witnessing a reversal. The immediate cause of anxiety for Bozkir was the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the biggest ever bilateral free trade pact, under negotiation since summer 2013, and from which Turkey is excluded since it is not in the EU.