THE Joe Biden will have his first meeting today as US president with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ending a five-month wait that marks the coldest relations between Ankara and Washington since January when the Democrats were sworn in as president. The two leaders face a number of issues, most of which have arisen during the Donald Trump presidency and are causing friction between the two NATO allies.
Missile defense – Kurds – Armenian issue
Turkey, a NATO member, has angered the United States by buying Russia’s S-400 anti-missile system. Washington has imposed sanctions on Turkey’s defense industry and canceled the sale of 100 F-35 fighter jets to Ankara. It also suspended the participation of Turkish companies in the manufacture of F-35 components, although some have continued to manufacture them in the absence of alternatives.
Turkey is outraged by US support for the Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers a terrorist organization. Turkish forces have invaded northern Syria three times since 2016 to oust the YPG from the border.
Biden’s only telephone conversation since taking office with Erdogan was in April, when he briefed the Turkish president on his intention to call the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire a genocide. Erdogan had said at the time that Washington’s decision was unfounded, unfair and damaging bilateral relations, and called on Biden to change his mind.
The failed coup – Human rights
Ankara is urging the United States to extradite Islamist cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it accuses of orchestrating the failed 2016 coup against Erdogan. U.S. officials have said the courts need enough evidence to extradite Gulen, who denies any involvement in the coup.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has accused the United States of hiding behind the coup, a charge that Washington has called completely false. After the coup, the Turkish authorities proceeded with unprecedented persecutions. More than 91,000 people have been jailed and more than 150,000 have been fired over their alleged links to Gulen.
In February, a majority of U.S. senators called on Biden to press Turkey to do more on human rights, accusing Erdogan of marginalizing the domestic opposition, silencing critical media, imprisoning journalists and prosecuting independent judges. An Istanbul court has sentenced a Turkish consulate worker to five years in prison last year for aiding and abetting Gulen’s network.
Nazmi Mete Chadurk, a security official at the US consulate in Istanbul, denies the charges and is free until his appeal is heard. Chadurk is the third convicted employee at the US consulate. Hamza Ulujaji was sentenced to two years in prison for terrorism. Metin Topuz, an interpreter for the US Drug Enforcement Administration at the consulate in Istanbul, was sentenced last year to almost nine years in prison for aiding the Gulen network.
American politics and the Halkbank trial
Erdogan accused Biden in May of “writing history with bloody hands” after approving arms sales to Israel during clashes with the Palestinian movement Hamas. The United States has criticized some of the Turkish president’s comments during the conflict as anti-Semitic.
In 2018, a US court sentenced Mehmet Hakan Attila, a Turkish national and banker of the Turkish state-owned Halkbank, to 32 months in prison on charges of helping Iran circumvent US sanctions. Corresponding charges have been filed against the bank, with the case pending. Attila was released in 2019.
During his election campaign, Biden criticized Erdogan and said the United States would support his political opponents. The Turkish president noted earlier this month that his country’s relations with the United States under Biden’s presidency are more tense than they were under previous presidents. “In our meeting with him, of course, we will ask him why US-Turkish relations are so tense,” Erdogan said.
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