Relations between Turkey and its natural allies - the US and the EU - continue to be strained, and this is cause for concern. First the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives voted in favour of a non-binding resolution which labelled the mass killings of Armenians in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire as genocide, infuriating Ankara and threatening to damage US-Turkish relations.
A few days later the Turkish Parliament gave the go-ahead - by a massive majority - to the government to use military force in Iraq against Kurdish guerrillas, further straining ties with Europe and the United States.
Turkey's geo-political and strategic importance cannot be underestimated, and coupled with Ankara's stalled EU membership talks, these two events are indeed very worrying developments which can only lead to a worsening of relations between Turkey and the West.
After the US congressional vote, Turkey recalled its ambassador to Washington "for consultations" and the country's most senior general warned that military ties between the US and Turkey will be severely damaged if the House of Representatives adopts the genocide resolution. General Yashar Buyukanit said the US had "shot itself in the foot" as a result of the congressional committee vote.
The non-binding resolution calls on the Bush administration to "accurately characterise the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide." President George Bush opposed the resolution, rightly so in my opinion, explaining that if approved, US-Turkish relations would be harmed. The two countries, which have the largest armies in NATO, have been close allies since the 1950s. Furthermore, eight former US Secretaries of State (from both parties) lobbied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to go ahead with the resolution, warning of the consequences of a 'yes' vote.
I am certainly not arguing that the Armenian genocide question should be ignored because of wider strategic interests. However, it is not for politicians to decide whether genocide took place, but for scholars and academics. Will the congressional resolution solve anything or bring justice to the Armenians? No, it will not.
The modern Turkish Republic is certainly not responsible for the mass killings of the Armenians; the Ottoman Empire is. Yes, Turkey must come to terms with its past and change the outrageous Article 301 of its penal code which makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness". This law has been used to convict people for simply daring to say that genocide took place against the Armenians.
The official Turkish version of events is that hundreds of thousands of Armenians - who were being deported to Syria and Iraq for siding with the Russians in World War I - were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, but Ankara refuses to accept the charge of genocide, and points out that many Turks were also killed in inter-ethnic violence.
It is true that most academics believe that genocide took place and 20 countries - including France, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Russia and Uruguay - have formally recognised that genocide was committed against the Armenians. However, what is needed is an open and free debate in Turkey, with the participation of international scholars, to determine exactly what took place. Modern day Turkey needs to come to terms with its past, but it is unlikely to do so with foreign parliaments unilaterally deciding what took place.
The approval on Wednesday by the Turkish Parliament of a military incursion into Iraq, in response to numerous attacks by Kurdish separatists based there, certainly raised some eyebrows in Brussels and Washington. As a result of the vote oil prices jumped more than a dollar to a fresh all-time high of $90 a barrel. Both Bush and the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana made it clear to Ankara that they didn't think it was in their interest to send troops into Iraq to pursue Kurdish guerrillas. The West's main fear, of course, is that a massive Turkish incursion could destabilise the only relatively stable region in Iraq and widen the Iraqi conflict. The last thing the US wants to see is a war between two of its key allies - Turkey and the Kurds in Iraq.
The massive Turkish parliamentary vote was expected - especially after the US congressional vote on the genocide question - as Ankara was in no mood to listen to calls for restraint from Washington. As a result of Turkey's obvious displeasure at the US vote and its subsequent parliamentary vote on Iraq, it now seems that the number of sponsors and co-sponsors in the US House of Representatives for the Armenian genocide resolution has fallen considerably, meaning that it is probably unlikely to be put forward for approval by the full House of Representatives, which might calm matters.
It is time for strategists in Brussels and Washington to assess the West's strategic relations with Turkey. Brussels is dragging its feet over Ankara's EU accession talks, relations between the US and Turkey have been strained over the invasion of Iraq and Washington's policy in the Middle East, the Armenian vote angered Turkey and the Turkish parliamentary vote has the potential to increase tensions in Iraq.
Public opinion in Turkey has slowly been turning hostile towards both the US and the EU, and this is very worrying indeed. This situation cannot go on forever; Turkey is too important a country. Surely a major effort needs to be made by all sides aimed at reversing the trend in Ankara's ties with its traditional allies.