Turkey, U.S. agree to move forward, not dwell on past

ANKARA, Turkey — The United States and Turkey agreed Friday to open a formal dialogue to resolve their differences over a Kurdish militia in Syria, averting a near-collapse in relations but without mending any of the deep fissures keeping them apart.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, after marathon talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, said a working group to tackle the differences wouldmeet by mid-March.

Mr. Tillerson acknowledgedhow close the NATO allies had come to a breakdown in relations.

“We find ourselves in a bit of crisis point in the relationship,” he said at a news conference.

“We’re not going to act alone any longer,” he added. “We’re not going to be the U.S. doing one thing and Turkey doing another. We’re going to act together from this point forward. We’re going to lock arms. We’re going to work through the issues that are causing difficulties for us, and we’re going to resolve them.”

However, despite his determined words, Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Cavusoglu spent much of the news conference repeating positions both haveheld for months.

Mr. Cavusoglu expressed anger that a cleric Turkey suspects of being behind a 2016 attempted coup is living in eastern Pennsylvania.

Mr. Tillerson said the United States would look at any evidence Turkey presents, though in the past such evidence has been judged by courts to be insufficient for the extradition Turkey wants.

The United States in turn is unhappy that Turkey has arrested thousands of its own citizens, as well as Americans and Turkish employees of the U.S. Embassy and consulates who U.S. officials say were just doing their jobs.