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Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Jan. 18 paid a visit to Washington. Everything that had to be said on bilateral relations had already been made public beforehand by the mouthpieces of both sides, so the talks unfolded as expected.
The established practice requires that when two foreign ministers meet they specifically underline the subjects that the two countries agree on. This is what they did last week in Washington. There was no press conference after the meeting.
A pro-forma joint statement was issued, giving a limited idea about how the talks unfolded. We have an idea about the unfolding of the talks thanks to Cavusoglu’s statement after the meeting. He said that the talks were very productive and that both sides agreed on further developing energy cooperation between the two countries. He specifically mentioned that Turkiye moved from fifth to fourth ranking among countries that import LNG from the US.
This is the second meeting of the “strategic mechanism” that was established two years ago between Turkiye and the US.
The US attitude toward Turkiye has been less than conciliatory for several years and has become tougher during the Biden administration. However, the Ukrainian crisis has changed several paradigms, including the US perception about Turkiye’s importance to the Euro-Atlantic community.
A recent Congressional report titled “Turkiye: Background and US Relations” was updated on Dec. 22 and gives an idea of Washington’s revised approach toward Ankara. Many negative connotations have been deleted in the updated version of the report, with most of them pertaining to unnecessary negative references to Turkiye.
Several complicated issues were discussed by Cavusoglu and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken; the most important ones are as follows.
Turkiye’s purchase of 40 new F-16 fighter aircraft and the updating of about 80 others that are already in the Turkish air force inventory seems to have dominated the talks. Cavusoglu, in his statement after the meeting, mentioned this as the first item. He questioned whether the Biden administration would stand firm behind its promise to go ahead with the sale.
On the other hand, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez still insists that he will do everything to obstruct this deal. President Joe Biden’s personal intervention may be needed at the final stage. If it is rejected by Congress, the president is entitled to resend it to Congress and this time a two-thirds majority would be required for the rejection. Therefore, Ankara expects a more active role by the US administration.
It seems that both Ankara and Washington are maintaining their previously declared positions.
Yasar Yakis
The two ministers reiterated that Turkiye’s opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO was not technically an issue between Ankara and Washington. However, it is an invisible but significant factor. The US continues to put its weight behind the accession of these two countries. Turkiye may continue to oppose these two countries’ membership unless its conditions are fully met, but the US may later link it to the F-16 deal and solve it that way.
The hanging of an effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a Swedish public square and the Swedish police granting permission for an anti-Turkish demonstration in Stockholm where the demonstrators burned a copy of the Holy Qur’an have added insult to injury.
On Syria, Turkiye continues to pressure the US to keep its promise to force the Kurdish fighters to leave Manbij. It has not yet officially given up its intention to carry out a military operation in Syria. The US continues to voice its opposition to such an operation and Turkiye maintains its equivocal attitude. This, and Washington’s strong support for the Kurds in Syria are likely to continue to cast a shadow on Ankara-Washington relations.
The US has maintained its position of not supporting the normalization of relations between Turkiye and Syria. Ankara seems determined to turn a deaf ear to US warnings and the normalization will be carried on, though with many pitfalls.
There was no direct reference to the US intention to sell F-35 super fighters to Greece. However, Cavusoglu complained about Washington’s attitude of not observing the conventional power balance between Turkiye and Greece.
He further complained about the US government decision to lift the arms embargo on the Greek Cypriots on the grounds that the latter has ceased to become a country of money laundering.
On the South Caucasus issue, Blinken told Cavusoglu that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was displaying a positive approach, while the Turkish minister believes that, on the contrary, Armenia had back-stepped on the Azerbaijani-Armenia reconciliation efforts. This suggests that the two ministers are not on the same page.
Blinken raised the question of Turkiye’s failure to abide by NATO and EU sanctions on Russia, but apparently Cavusoglu turned a deaf ear.
It seems that both Ankara and Washington have maintained their previously declared positions and agreed to disagree.
• Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkiye and founding member of the ruling AK Party.
Twitter: @yakis_yasar