US Ambassador to Ankara, Jeff Flake, said that the NATO leaders’summit in Washington, scheduled for July 9-11, could be an opportunity for a meeting between President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan had initially planned to visit the Biden White House in May, but the visit was postponed by the Turkish side. Officials from both countries cited a scheduling conflict as the reason for the delay. However, it is believed that the ongoing US military support for Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza was one of the factors that contributed to the postponement.
Biden is the first US president in over two decades who has not hosted Erdogan in the White House during the first three years of his term. Flake told Reuters in an exclusive interview released on Wednesday that there is a desire on both sides for a meeting, and that the NATO leaders’ summit in Washington provides an opportunity for those talks to take place.
The NATO leaders will gather in Washington to mark the 75th anniversary of the security alliance. Turkish officials have said that Erdogan will attend the meeting. Erdogan has been a vocal critic of Israel and the United States over the war in Gaza. “Countries that provide ammunition and weapons support to Israel in its massacres should also stop being a party to this crime,” he said last week, in a fresh, thinly-veiled jab at the Biden administration. Unlike the United States and European Union, Turkey does not consider Hamas a terrorist organisation and its political leaders can travel to Turkey freely.
The US Treasury imposed sanctions on a series of Turkish individuals and companies for financing the group at the beginning of the war. Erdogan’s visit to the United States will come on the heels of his attendance at a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Kazakh capital Astana on July 3-4. Speaking during his meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Tuesday, Putin said he would meet with Erdogan in person on the sidelines of the SCO summit.
Fidan, who visited China first and then Russia within a week, has been messaging that Turkey is willing to deepen its cooperation with the United States’ traditional foes, namely Russia and China. Speaking in China last week, Fidan said Turkey was exploring new opportunities with BRICS, a bloc founded by Russia, Brazil, South Africa, and India. Putin said on Tuesday that he would “fully support” Turkey’s aspirations in the BRICS bloc. Flake expressed his hope that Turkey would not join BRICS, but added that the NATO member’s involvement in the bloc would not derail its alignment with the West.
***Show us some LOVE by sharing it!***
