Rama Krishna Sangem
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ended a frozen state of ties between his country and the US as he met with US President Donald Trump at White House last week on September 25 Thursday, marking the Turkish leader’s first White House visit in six years. Erdogan befriended with the US without compromising on his position on Gaza.
The meeting comes as several issues in the US-Turkish bilateral relationship remain unresolved, such as long-stalled talks over US sales of F-35 fighter jets to Ankara, US sanctions on Turkey, and Trump’s demand that NATO countries, including Turkey, stop buying Russian oil.
Turkish media is of the view that this visit is a landmark one in view of near agreement between the two leaders on Turkey’s pivotal role in the Middle-East region. Trump-Erdoğan meeting might impact broader US-Turkish cooperation on trade, energy, and policy toward the Middle East? Turkey Today expert Rich Outzen analyzed this way:
Successful at 3 levels:
The meeting between Trump and Erdoğan was a success on three levels. First, the fact that the trip occurred at all is significant, as it ended a six-year period of arms-length distance between the countries’ leaders, despite their shared interests and strategic matters requiring top-level coordination. This marks a positive if partial shift of tone in the bilateral relationship. That should play out in tighter cooperation on defense, energy, trade, and regional matters for the rest of the current US administration’s term, said Outzen.
Second, the optics of the joint press conference were overwhelmingly positive. The two men praised one another, avoided embarrassment, and ticked off a list of areas of shared concern and general policy overlap: Syria, Ukraine, ending the war in Gaza, and resolving the F-35 and US sanctions issues to resume broader defense industrial cooperation.
Third, after the closed-door session, we have hints that solid progress was achieved in several areas. US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack expressed optimism that the reintegration of the Syrian Democratic Forces into the Syrian state security structure was moving forward and could be substantially achieved by the end of the year.
And an announcement is expected after the meeting that could provide a roadmap for resolving the disputes over F-35s and US sanctions. In terms of concrete agreements, it appears that two major energy agreements—one for twenty-year liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchases valued at $43 billion and a civilian nuclear deal involving small modular reactors—were formalized during the meeting. Other commercial deals may be announced in formal readouts of the meeting, felt Outzen.
Erdogan satisfied
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared his recent trip to the United States “very, very successful” on September 29 Monday, dismissing opposition criticism of his visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Speaking to reporters following a Cabinet meeting, Erdogan said his discussions with U.S. President Donald Trump were productive and that “we will see the positive results in the coming days.”
The Turkish leader said he and Trump discussed reaching a $100 billion bilateral trade target during their meeting. The two presidents also addressed the Gaza crisis, the Russia-Ukraine war, regional developments and maintaining stability in Syria, according to Erdogan.
“The reason the opposition is trying to discredit our U.S. visit in a state of hysteria is because the visit was extraordinarily successful,” Erdogan said. At UN General Assembly session, Erdogan openly criticized Israeli PM Netanyahu for committing “more than a genocide” on Gaza and reminded that as many as 158 countries including two of five permanent member of UN Security Council have recognized Palestine.
