Tillerson tries to assuage frustrated ally
Secretary of statemeets with Turkey’s president during whirlwind trip
ANKARA, Turkey — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson traveled to Turkey on Thursday hoping to preserve the Trump Administration’s cordial relationship with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan despite deep policy disagreements that threaten to drive the allies apart.
But flashes of tension during the visit left doubts about whether Tillerson had succeeded and raised new questions about the future of the U.S. relationship with the NATO ally and partner in the broader fight against the Islamic State militant group.
Even before Tillerson landed, Turkish officials this week leaked a damaging rumor about the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul to the local press that seemed timed to put pressure on the secretary’s visit. And at a joint news conference on Thursday with Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s for- eign minister, Tillerson listened as his counterpart recited a litany of Turkish complaints, including annoyance with an American plan to support Kurdish fighters in Syria.
Tillerson said his discussions in Turkey, which included a two-hour meeting with Erdogan, had been “frank.”
“These are not easy decisions,” he said, referring to the debates with Turkey over the battle plans for Syria. “They are difficult choices that need to be made.”
Erdogan has pinned lofty hopes on his relationship with Trump, betting that the new president would be a more sympathetic partner than his predecessor. Turkey’s frustrations with President Barack Obama had stemmed from anger at a U.S. plan to support a Kurdish-Arab force in Syria for an assault on Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State militants. Turkey is concerned that the plan could strengthen Syrian Kurdish fighters it regards as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, an outlawed Kurdish separatist group in Turkey.
Another sore spot is Washington’s failure to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania. Turkey has accused Gulen of spearheading a failed coup against Erdogan’s government last summer. American officials have said the evidence provided by Turkey so far is insufficient to make a legal case for extradition.