Physically bridging Europe and Asia, Turkey is a secular country that has pursued a Western-oriented foreign policy. To this end, Turkey uses its global diplomatic network—the fourth most extensive—of 246 diplomatic and consular missions. Since the Cold War, Turkey's most important ally has been the United States, which shared Turkey's interest in containing Soviet expansion. In support of the United States, Turkey contributed personnel to the UN forces in the Korean War (1950–1953), joined NATO in 1952, recognized Israel in 1948 and has cooperated closely with it. Turkey's alliance with Israel during the Arab–Israeli conflict strained its relations with the Arab world, and Iran, and subsequently led to overt Syrian support for Palestinian and Armenian terrorist operations against Turkish diplomats abroad until 1990. History Historically, the Foreign relations of the Ottoman Empire and later Turkey balanced regional and global powers off against one another, forming alliances that best protected the interests of the incumbent regime. The Soviet Union played a major role in supplying weapons to and financing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's faction during the Turkish War of Independence but Turkey's followed a course of relative international isolation during the period of Atatürk's Reforms in 1920s and 1930s. International conferences gave Turkey full control of the strategic straits linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, through the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and the Montreux Convention of 1936. In the late 1930s Nazi Germany made a major effort to promote anti-Soviet propaganda in Turkey and exerted economic pressure. Britain and France, eager to outmaneuver Germany, negotiated a tripartite treaty in 1939. They gave Turkey a line of credit to purchase war materials from the West and a loan to facilitate the purchase of commodities. Afraid of threats from Germany and Russia, Turkey maintained neutrality. It sold chrome—an important war material—to both sides. It was clear by 1944 that Germany would be defeated and the chrome sales to Germany stopped. After 1945 After World War II Turkey sought closer relations with Western powers. It became a founding member of the United Nations in 1945, a recipient of Marshall Plan aid and a member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1952. European Union–Turkey relations warmed during the Cold War period and the post-Cold War period has seen a diversification of relations, with Turkey, at various moments, seeking to strengthen its regional presence in the Balkans, the Middle East and the Caucasus, as well