Skip to main content

White House Says Biden, Erdogan to Have Expansive Discussion on Bilateral Ties

 

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (R) and then-US Vice President Joe Biden chat after their meeting in Istanbul, Turkey January 23, 2016. REUTERS/Sedat Suna/Pool/File Photo

US President Joe Biden and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will meet to discuss Syria, Afghanistan and other regional issues next week and will also look at the "significant differences" between Washington and Ankara, the US national security advisor said on Monday.


Speaking at a White House briefing, Jake Sullivan said the eastern Mediterranean, Syria, Iran, as well as the role that Turkey will play in Afghanistan as the United States withdraws from the country will be part of the "expansive agenda".


In addition, the meeting, planned to take place on June 14 on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels, will also review their ties and look for ways on how the United States and Turkey deal with some of their "significant differences on values and human rights and other issues", Sullivan said.


"President Biden knows Erdogan very well, the two men have spent a good amount of time together and they're both, I think, looking forward to the opportunity, to really have a business like opportunity to review the full breadth of the relationship," Sullivan said.


Ankara and Washington have been struggling to repair ties, strained in recent years over several issues, including Turkey's purchase of Russian defense systems which resulted in US sanctions, policy differences in Syria, as well as Washington's alarm over Ankara's human rights track record.


The two NATO allies also have differing views in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as well as Ankara's oil and gas ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean while Turkey's potential role in Afghanistan in the aftermath of planned US pullout could serve as an area of cooperation.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NATO Chief: No New Cold War With China

Flags of NATO member countries flutter at alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 28, 2020. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday there is no new Cold War with China but the western allies will have to adapt to the challenge of Beijing's rise. "We're not entering a new Cold War and China is not our adversary, not our enemy," Stoltenberg told reporters after a NATO leaders' summit. "But we need to address together, as the alliance, the challenges that the rise of China poses to our security." NATO leaders are expected on Monday to brand China as a security risk to the Western alliance for the first time, a day after the Group of Seven issued a statement on human rights and Taiwan that Beijing said slandered its reputation. G7 leaders, meeting in Britain over the weekend, scolded China over human rights in its Xinjiang region, called for Hong Kong to keep a high degree of autonomy and demanded a...

Can Biden-Erdogan meeting break the diplomatic impasse on key issues?

Turkey is a US ally and a NATO member, but under President Erdogan’s assertive foreign policy, Ankara has shown the capacity to go its own way if necessary. American and Turkish leaders, Joe Biden and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will meet on June 14 at the NATO summit amid a backdrop of serious disagreements on various issues, ranging from Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400s to Washington’s ongoing support of the YPG, the Syrian wing of the PKK, a terror group in northern Syria. There are also other issues like Biden’s recent acceptance of the 1915 incidents concerning armed fighting between Armenians and Turks during WWI as a genocide, and Washington’s previous criticism of Turkey’s assertive eastern Mediterranean policy. Despite those differences, Turkey and the US continue to have close commercial relations and across Central Asia and the Caucasus, both countries have similar political stances. Ankara, like Washington, has been also opposing Russian intervention in both the Ukrainian and ...

EU Advises Against Astrazeneca Shot in People With Rare Blood Condition

A vial of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is seen at a vaccination center in Westfield Stratford City shopping center, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London, Britain, February 18, 2021. (REUTERS/Henry Nicholls) Europe's drug regulator on Friday advised against using AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine in people with a history of a rare bleeding condition and said it was looking into heart inflammation cases after inoculation with all coronavirus shots. The European Medicines Agency's (EMA) safety committee in its evaluation said that capillary leak syndrome must be added as a new side effect to labelling on AstraZeneca's vaccine, Reuters reported. It is a condition in which blood leaks from the smallest of vessels into muscles and body cavities and is characterized by swelling and a drop in blood pressure. The regulator first began looking into these cases in April and the recommendation adds to AstraZeneca's woes after its vaccine has been dogge...