Throughout the Cold War, for almost 50 years, the United States and Turkey were close allies. The backbone of the alliance was military cooperation. Shared values of democracy between the two members of the “free world” was secondary to their attachment to the collective security and strategic interests.
The pillars of the ties had been the Pentagon in the United States, and the Turkish army in Turkey. Back then, the chief-of-staff of the Turkish army outranked the minister of defense.