Trump, Turkish president meeting today,

WASHINGTON— The United States is on a collision course with its NATO ally Turkey, pushing ahead with arming Syrian Kurds after deciding the immediate objective of defeating Daesh militants outweighs the potential damage to a partnership vital to U.S. interests in the volatile Middle East.

The Turks are fiercely opposed to the U.S. plans, seeing the Kurdish fighters as terrorists. And when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits the White House on Tuesday, the most he and U.S. President Donald Trump may be able to do is agree to disagree, and move on.

“The Turks see this as a crisis in the relationship,” said Jonathan Schanzer at the Washington-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies.

The challenge is hardly new. Long before Trump took office, U.S. presidents have grappled with the fragility of partnering with Turkey’s government and the Kurds to carry out a Middle East agenda.

Trump’s administration is arming Syrian Kurdish fighters as part of an effort to recapture the Syrian city of Raqqa, Daesh’s self-declared capital.

Turkey has been pressuring the U.S. to drop support for the Kurdish militants in Syria, and doesn’t want them spearheading the Raqqa effort.

The Turks fear any weapons the U.S. provides the Syrian Kurds could well end up with their ethnic brethren in Turkey, who’ve fought violently as part of a separatist insurgency for more than three decades. Erdogan has pressed for the U.S. to reverse its strategy, however low the prospects of Trump changing his mind. As a result, experts see Erdogan using Tuesday’s meeting to confront Trump on a host of other Turkish grievances

“I see this trip as a new milestone in Turkey-U.S. relations,” Erdogan said, as he prepared to fly to Washington.

The U.S., too, has a wish list for Turkey.

Washington is concerned by rising anti-Americanism in Turkey that Erdogan’s government has tolerated since the July coup attempt. The U.S. also has pressed unsuccessfully for the release of Andrew Brunson and other detained U.S. citizens.

Yet Erdogan may not be amenable to accepting the U.S. military support for the Kurds in a quid pro quo.

Barack Aydin of the Kurdish Policy Research Center said the key ought to be a broader peace process between Erdogan’s government and Kurdish opponents in Turkey, which would eliminate these problems. “That would be a very good start,” Aydin said.