Don't tell me NATO and the EU have nothing to do with each other. All the former communist candidates for accession thought you could not have one without the other. [Still waiting for Marek's diary on Atlanticism]

I know it is a significant decision and I don't know what the right answer is.

To talk about a "gray area" implies that Europe and the Middle East are somehow poles in some relationship. I don't think that's the case. There are more ways to look at Turkey. The Ottoman empire was its own thing, and it inherited as much from the Caliphate as it did from the Byzantine empire.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides