Welllllllllll, they weren’t exactly our BFF’s.
Remember, we had troops massed on their border to invade Iraq and they pulled the plug on us at the last minute allowing a shitload of Saddamites to melt into the crowd instead of getting dead.
That happened because Erdogan and the AKP had just won in recent elections. This very same group has cemented its permanent hold on power, and has overthrown the secular constitution that Turkey has had since its founding.