President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's talks with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and President Obama who joined them by phone just before he returned home from the U.N. General Assembly in New York, overtly indicate that Turkey is of critical importance to the U.S.-led coalition that has been formed to mop up the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). So, it is not a coincidence that the foreign media, which has tried to present the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) as a proponent of ISIS for a year, has suddenly started to publish news that can be interpreted as "We need Turkey."

Turkey is now gearing up to make attempts to handle the threat posed by ISIS on its borders. Since Turkey is heading toward a rather risky and unpredictable process, it is now on the verge of passing quite an extensive mandate, which seeks to authorize the army to deploy troops into war-torn Syria and Iraq. Moreover, the minds of many in Turkey are preoccupied with the question of whether we can trust the U.S. or not in the process.

As far as I can see, there are three major motives behind Turkey's support for the coalition. The first is that it wants to take an initiative to fulfill the territories, which will be freed from ISIS after operation, with Syrian opposition groups rather than Bashar Assad's forces. Secondly, it needs to convince the international community to establish a safe zone, and lastly it stands against the manipulations that can cripple the reconciliation process.

With an almost unprecedented hospitality in world history, Turkey has opened its doors to some 2 million Syrian refugees. It seems difficult for Turkey to sustain its compassionate "open door" policies when we take into account the potential inflow of hundreds of thousands of refugees after the operations. Moreover, changing the regional demography in a radical way will only serve to strengthen both ISIS and Assad's hand, which is why Turkey's demand to establish a safe zone is quite reasonable.

For the last two years, Turkey has been warning the international community of the possibility that the authority gap caused by the Syrian civil war will fortify terrorist organizations in the region as long as the Assad regime persists. In this regard, it is promising to see that Western countries have finally been persuaded by this argument in order to handle ISIS permanently. First, France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that their major enemy is Assad and then ISIS as well as saying that Assad does not combat ISIS as it fits well with his purposes.

A later remark came from U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who said, " It also means we've got to learn the lessons of the past. I think that means first of all we've got to build an alliance within the region - it's not just about Britain and the United States, it's about countries within the region, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar," and that in his view, "President Assad is part of the problem, rather than part of the solution." Lastly, U.S. President Barack Obama said, "We are not going to stabilize Syria under the rule of Assad," whose government has committed "terrible atrocities."

Previously, however, when Assad killed thousands of civilians with chemical weapons overstepping Obama's red line, he said, "When dictators commit atrocities, they depend upon the world to look the other way until those horrifying pictures fade from memory." In fact, since the Syria crisis erupted, Obama pursued a contradictory and hesitant foreign policy. He neither strongly supported the opposition groups, nor did he drive Assad into a tight corner. Due to this ambivalent policies, Assad was able to survive with weaponry flowing from Russia and Iran.

Once the foreign coalition forces leave the region after bombarding it, Turkey may encounter a much more complicated national security threat along its borders and may have to tackle it on its own. Therefore, if the coalition does not apply a solution plan that will also restore political order in the region and cannot go beyond "saving the day" alone, Turkey needs to revise to what extent it will take an active part in the coalition. So, over and over again, we come to the question asked in the title - "Can Turkey trust the U.S.?" It is really hard to say, "Yes, yes we can," under these circumstance?