US-Turkish talks end ambiguously

It remained unclear whether there was any real agreement on Manbij after Monday’s meeting, even as the joint US-Turkish statement said that the two sides had “endorsed a Road Map” for Manbij.

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met in Washington with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday.

The meeting aimed to reduce tensions between the two NATO allies and pursue the broad understanding which had been reached by Pompeo’s predecessor, Rex Tillerson, in a three-hour long meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in mid-February.

The extent to which Pompeo feels committed to pursuing the accommodating stance that Tillerson adopted in Ankara was unclear before Pompeo’s meeting with Cavusoglu and remained so afterwards.

While Cavusoglu has sought to portray Monday’s meeting as highly successful, the US has made no comment on it beyond issuing a joint statement with Turkey, which “reaffirmed” their mutual commitment “to addressing their common concerns in a spirit of allied partnership.”

Pompeo made his last public remarks about Turkey on May 24 in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, when he expressed US frustration with Ankara, affirming, “The trend is wrong.”

One major issue between the US and Turkey is Syria and its Kurdish population. Pompeo told the senators that in his meeting with Cavusoglu, he hoped to achieve “a resolution” of “Turkish activities in northern Syria in and around Afrin and Manbij.”

Some 200,000 Kurds have fled Afrin, following Turkey’s occupation of the predominantly Kurdish enclave earlier this year. They are not being allowed to return to their homes, while Turkey is bringing Arabs into the area in order to change fundamentally its demography.

The joint US-Turkish statement issued on Monday does not mention Afrin, despite Pompeo’s stated intention to discuss it.

However, the statement does say that the two sides “endorsed a Road Map” to ensure “security and stability in Manbij,” while underlining “their mutual commitment to its implementation” and intention “to closely follow developments on the ground.”

Turkey maintains that the Kurdish group leading the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), America’s partner in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria, namely, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), is a terrorist organization. The US rejects that characterization.

In the three and a half months since Tillerson’s meeting with Erdogan, Turkey claimed four times that it had reached an agreement with the US on Manbij, which is now under the control of the Manbij Military Council, a local organization, established by the SDF.

Each time, the US denied an agreement had been reached.

And it remained unclear whether there was any real agreement on Manbij after Monday’s meeting, even as the joint US-Turkish statement said that the two sides had “endorsed a Road Map” for Manbij.

Dr. Aykan Erdemir, a former member of the Turkish parliament and Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that the two parties “have chosen not to share details.”

“It is likely that some areas of contention between the two sides have been left ambiguous, not only in the joint statement, but also in the road map,” he told Kurdistan 24. Thus, one can only judge the success of the road map “during the implementation phase.”

Indeed, “Cavusoglu’s Washington visit has more to do with the upcoming elections in Turkey than foreign and security affairs,” Erdemir said.

“The Turkish government is doing badly in the polls, and, hence, desperate to show to the electorate that they are not isolated globally,” he continued, likening “Cavusoglu’s photo op with Pompeo” to “Erdogan’s recent photo op with the British queen or photo op with [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel two weeks before the November 2015 elections.”

In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committe, Pompeo outlined three other major areas of concern regarding Turkey.

They include the detention of American Pastor Andrew Brunson, who has been held by Turkish authorities since Oct 2016. Asked if he would raise it with Cavusoglu, Pompeo had a one-word answer: “Yes.”

“An initial session of the Working Group on Judicial and Other Issues took place immediately after” the meeting between Pompeo and Cavusoglu, the joint statement said.

Probably, this first meeting of the working group addressed Brunson’s case, as well as that of Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish cleric in exile in Pennsylvania, whom Ankara blames for the 2016 coup attempt.

The other issues dividing Ankara and Washington involve arms purchases.

Turkey is slated to acquire the Russian S-400 air defense system, which “causes multiple levels of challenges between Turkey and NATO,” Pompeo told the senate committee. “We are trying to offer them alternatives” for their “legitimate defense needs.”

At the same time, Turkey wants to purchase America’s latest fighter jet, the F-35. Asked about that, Pompeo explained that no agreement had been reached.

“It’s still very much a live issue,” he stated, “Turkey’s capacity to have access to the F-35.”