Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
U.S. seeks to ease Turkey’s fears
Defense chief plays up ties after Ankara slams arming Kurds
LONDON — U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis made clear Thursday that the U.S. is committed to protecting Turkey after angering its NATO ally with a deal to arm anti-Islamic State fighters in Syria that Turkey considers terrorists.
Mattis stressed the enduring nature of the U.S.-Turkey relationship in a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, the first face-toface contact between officials from the two countries since the U.S. announcement about military support for the Syrian Kurds.
The defense secretary, speaking to reporters aboard a U.S. military airplane after the meeting in London, characterized the discussions as “honest, transparent and helpful.” The half-hour conversation took place before an international conference on Somalia, and Mattis said he had no doubt the U.S. and Turkey would “work this out with due consideration and significant attention paid to Turkey’s security, to NATO’s security and the continuing campaign against ISIS.”
The U.S. is convinced that the Kurdish fighters, known as the People’s Protection Units, are the most effective local force in trying to oust Islamic State militants from their stronghold in Raqqa, Syria. Turkey wants the arms agreement reversed. Its leaders have railed against any strategy that, in their view, would involve the U.S. using one terrorist group to fight another.
The U.S. is trying to provide Turkey assurances. A senior U.S. official said the U.S. will step up joint intelligence-sharing with the Turks to help them better target terrorists. The move, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is one of the things the U.S. is offering to ease Turkish concerns that the weapons will end up in enemy hands. The official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. has yet to provide the weapons.
Mattis acknowledged concerns of the Turkish government in Ankara that weapons could end up in the hands of the Kurdish militants in Turkey, known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the PKK. Like Turkey, the U.S. considers that group a terrorist organization.
“We support Turkey in its fight against PKK,” he said. “We do not ever give weapons to the PKK. We never have and never will.”
Before his meeting with Mattis, Yildirim had warned that “there is still an opportunity for the United States to take Turkey’s sensitivities into consideration. Otherwise, the outcome won’t only affect Turkey. A negative outcome will also emerge for the United States.”
Mattis has played down the friction between the allies, saying that while “it’s not always tidy,” they will resolve any differences.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is to visit President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday. Erdogan has demanded that Washington undo the arms decision and said he would take up the issue with Trump.
The Trump administration has not specified the kinds of arms to be provided. U.S. officials have indicated that 120mm mortars, machine guns, ammunition and light armored vehicles were possibilities. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the matter, said artillery or surface-to-air missiles would not be provided.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled that Germany will refuse Trump’s demands to bring forward planned increases in NATO spending, saying that extra outlays already are being made.
Trump, who has said that Germany “owes vast sums of money” to NATO, is due to travel to Europe later this month for a meeting in Brussels of NATO leaders, including the German chancellor.
Merkel, speaking Thursday in Berlin after talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on the goals of the May 25 meeting, said the German government was committed to raising spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2024 “and is working on it.”
“In past years we have shown that we have made increases, so I see no need for further provisions on May 25,” the chancellor said.
Germany increased its defense budget by 8 percent this year to about $40.1 billion, though it still falls far short of the 2 percent of GDP target. Merkel also argues that development aid should be taken into account as a security component.
In a tweet sent a day after hosting Merkel at the White House, Trump said the U.S. “must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”