Erdogan softens stance before Biden meeting
ISTANBUL — For the past four years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has crushed his opponents at home and cozied up to Moscow while showering his allies with sweetheart government contracts and deploying troops regionally wherever he saw fit.
But as Erdogan arrives in Brussels for a critical NATO meeting Monday, he is facing a decidedly more skeptical Biden administration.
Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and his mismanagement of the economy, Erdogan is now facing severe domestic strains, with soaring inflation and unemployment and a dangerously weakened lira that could trigger a debt crisis.
So he has dialed back his approach, already softening his positions on several issues in the hope of receiving badly needed investment from the West. To reassure Western leaders, he has called off gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, an activity that had infuriated NATO allies, and annoyed Moscow by supporting Ukraine against Russia’s threats and selling Turkish-made drones to Poland.
However, Turkey’s presence in NATO, its role as a way station for millions of refugees, and its military presence in Afghanistan have given him leverage with the West.
President Joe Biden’s initial approach to Erdogan had been to maintain his distance, trying to avoid disagreements and handle matters at lower diplomatic levels.
Turkey wants to lift itself out of an economic crunch, deepened by the pandemic, which has destroyed its tourist industry. It is also anxious to avoid further U.S. sanctions, imposed after Erdogan bought the S-400 missile system from Russia.