U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Turkey on Wednesday marked the first time a senior White House official has called on the country’s president following last month’s failed coup. Biden’s visit to Ankara was the Obama administration’s attempt at mending fences with a key partner in the fight against the Islamic State.
For President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and many Turks, it was a much needed, albeit somewhat late, effort at repairing tattered U.S.-Turkish relations, particularly since the July coup, in which some Turks accuse Washington of having a hand.
“The major goal of the trip is to make sure that our alliance remains rock solid and that relations get back on track,” a senior administration officials told The Wall Street Journal. “There are a lot of things going on right now in our relationship and neither one of us can afford to have that relationship be too strained at the moment.” Most pressing among those “things going on” is the collaboration between the U.S. and Turkey against the Islamic State in neighboring Syria.
For months, U.S. fighter jets have been launching airstrikes into Syria from Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base in support of both Syrian and Kurdish rebel groups. The strikes have forced the Islamic State from numerous Syrian towns near the Turkish border and just this week opened a corridor for Syrian rebels in Turkey and Turkish special forces to enter the country and engage the Islamic State on the ground.
Turkish forces had also been shelling the the Syrian town of Jarablus from their side of the border ahead of the ground mission, prompting an Islamic State retaliatory mortar attack targeting the Turkish town of Karkamis just across the border.
In addition to thwarting the Islamic State on both sides of the border, Turkey’s offensive into Jarablus is also an attempt to keep the Kuridsh fighters, known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), from taking the city. As the Cipher Brief noted last week, YPG successes against the Islamic State in northern Syria has Ankara concerned about the prospects of an autonomous Kurdish state being declared along its border.
Turkey’s decades-long conflict with the Kurdish minority on its side of the border has left tens of thousands dead, and in recent months, has been particularly heated, resulting in the Turkish army waging devastating and deadly assaults on predominately Kurdish cities like Diyarbakir.
Their ongoing battles with Kurds on both sides of the border have contributed to discord with the U.S., though the Obama administration appears willing—at least for the time being—to tolerate Turkey targeting a crucial U.S. ally on the ground in Syria.
The U.S. -Turkish dispute
The American disfavor with Erdogan stems from the Turkish President’s penchant for authoritarianism and a previous lack of resolve in taking on the Islamic State.
Erdogan had long been criticized for not doing enough to combat the extremists, with some detractors accusing his administration of outright supporting them by allowing would-be jihadists to travel through the country en route to Syria and Iraq.
That no longer seems to be the case. Erdogan has recently overseen the arrest of hundreds of Islamic State suspects and Turkey’s growing role in the U.S.-led NATO mission in Syria.
However, Turkey’s stepped up efforts to take on the Islamic State has not been without cost.
A deadly bombing at Istanbul’s international airport and a more recent suicide attack in Gaziantep left dozens dead and further rattled Turks, who’ve grown weary of increasing threats to their safety.
Those threats against Turkey extend beyond the Islamic State. The coup attempt in July has Erdogan seeing traitors everywhere, resulting in the arrests or detentions of tens of thousands of soldiers, journalists, academics, and others allegedly conspiring to foment Erdogan’s demise.
Those now behind bars are accused of having loyalties to the Turkish religious leader in exile Fetullah Gulen, who resides in Pennsylvania and is considered public enemy number one by Erdogan and his supporters.
Ankara made repeated requests for Gulen’s extradition from the United States even prior to the coup attempt and has made repeated public requests for his return to Turkey since then. What Turkey hasn’t done through is provide any concrete evidence that Gulen was behind the behind the coup, the Washington Post recently reported.
At a news conference following meeting with Turkish leaders, Biden told reporters that he understood the “intense feeling your government and the people of Turkey have about him [Gulen]” and that “we are cooperating with the Turkish authorities.” Biden added, “we have no reason to shelter someone who would attack an ally and try to overthrow a democracy.”
Erdogan in turn asserted that Washington had “no excuse” for continuing to host the Turkish cleric.
Lawyers from the U.S. Justice Department are currently in Turkey evaluating evidence produced by Turkish officials in regards to the extradition request.
Looking for other allies
All this uncertainty amid warfare and attempts to storm the Erdogan castle has the Turkish president looking elsewhere for allies, prompting his decision to work on repairing Turkey’s fractured relationship with Russia. Moscow and Ankara engaged in a bitter diplomatic row in November after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet, which the Turkish military contends had strayed into Turkish territory from Syria.
The downing of the warplane put billions of dollars in economic deals between Turkey and Russia on hold and further ratcheted up anxieties in a region already rife with them.
But when tensions between the U.S. and Turkey grew even greater following the July coup attempt, Erdogan seemingly let bygones be bygones with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The Turkish president was even in Russia earlier this month, a trip that likely galvanized the White House into sending Biden to Turkey with the aim of getting Washington-Ankara relations back online.
The Russia visit by Erdogan was a message to Washington that “we could just as easily work with Russia,” according to Uygar Baspehlivan, a Turkey analyst at King's College London Middle-East and North Africa Forum. “In the short term, Turkey has the leverage,” Baspehlivan noted.
Turkey’s prime minister even went as far as to recently tell reporters that Russian warplanes could potentially use Incirlik Air Base for conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria. That’s the same base U.S. warplanes use and is also home to some 2,500 U.S military personnel, not to mention 50 U.S. nuclear weapons.
Having Russian soldiers and aviators on the same base as U.S. airmen, soldiers, and warheads is surely grabbing the attention of American intelligence and defense officials and is perhaps yet another reason why Vice President Biden is in Turkey trying to mend those tattered ties.
Carmen Gentile has covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other conflicts. His work has also taken him to West Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Carmen's recent reporting has been along the Turkish/Syrian border where he covers the refugee crisis.
