Friend or foe, Trump welcomes Erdogan
Turkey may have been happy to see Barack Obama replaced, but jury is out on status of relationship with new US leader
When Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, all the indications were that Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s first meeting with the former reality TV star and real estate mogul would be a friendly one. But when the two men finally come face to face for the first time in Washington today, the tone is set to be adversarial.
During the election campaign, Mr Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Lt Gen Michael Flynn, was a man paid to push the Turkish government’s agenda in Washington. Mr Trump painted the US-led fight against ISIL as floundering, and promised a change of strategy. That was good news for Turkey as the US had been relying heavily on Kurdish forces that Turkey considered terrorists.
A change in guard at US presidential level was also seen as a welcome development for Turkey. Its relationship with Washington had, at times, deteriorated into outright hostility under Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House.
But things have not gone quite the way Turkey may have hoped.
Lt Gen Flynn was fired from his national security adviser post weeks into the job – for misleading vice president Mike Pence over his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the US. And since Mr Trump took office, his administration has pursued largely the same foreign policies as did the Obama administration.
Fethullah Gulen, the self-exiled cleric Ankara blames for a coup attempt against Mr Erdogan in July last year, is still living as a free man in the US state of Pennsylvania, despite calls by Turkey for his arrest and extradition.
US support for the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria – which Ankara considers an arm of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party ( PKK) – has only deepened, with hundreds more American troops deploying to YPG- held areas of the country. Last week, Mr Trump did something even more unforgivable in Turkey’s eyes – he authorised a plan to provide weapons to the YPG.
The move was a clear signal to Ankara that Washington had rejected its plan to have Turkish forces and allied Arab rebel proxies lead the fight to retake Raqqa, ISIL’s self-described capital. By supplying the YPG with heavy weapons that will remain in their hands after the Raqqa operation is over, Washington has increased the probability of a Kurdish state in northern Syria after the war.
Turkey, predictably, is livid about the US decision. Ankara said the YPG’s weapons would end up being used by the PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish state since 1984, and accused the US of siding with a terrorist group. The US attempted to reassure its Nato ally that the weapons would not reach the PKK, which both nations consider a terrorist group, while promising to find a role for Turkey in the fight for Raqqa.
Keeping Turkey calm will be essential if the US wants the Raqqa operation to proceed without obstacles. Turkish forces have repeatedly fought the YPG after entering Syrian territory last August alongside Syrian rebel units, ostensibly to drive ISIL away from its border but also to clear areas of Kurdish fighters.
While the Turkish military operation has officially ended, Mr Erdogan has promised to continue confronting the YPG in Syria and last month attacked the Kurdish militia’s positions with air strikes.
Still, some in the Turkish government remain optimistic about how Mr Trump will deal with Ankara.
In a report published by Turkey’s pro-government Daily Sabah newspaper last week, Turkish officials blamed the US decision to arm the YPG on Obama administration holdovers who were afraid that, in a face-to-face meeting, Mr Erdogan could persuade Mr Trump to adopt a position more friendly to Ankara.
Mr Trump, after all, has had a history of going into meetings with adversaries only to leave as friends.
Last month, he hosted Chinese president Xi Jinping, whose country is one of North Korea’s few friends and a nation Mr Trump had promised to label a currency manipulator. Weeks later, Mr Trump was still beaming about the meeting and telling people “how great” Mr Xi is. Mr Erdogan has voiced confidence about the outcome of his meeting with Mr Trump, describing it as a “milestone” in Turkish-American relations before he departed for Washington yesterday.
But reconciling differences could prove impossible.
The YPG remains the only force that is in position to capture Raqqa in the near future, and Turkey will never be convinced that the group is not a threat.
The militia’s ties to the PKK are strong and a strengthened YPG would embolden Kurdish separatists in Turkey even if they did not receive US weapons from their friends across the border.