Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated Thursday that his nation’s relationship with the US was not “wholesome.”
“I can not say {that a} wholesome course of is operating in Turkish-American ties,” Turkish broadcaster Haberturk quoted him as telling Turkish journalists on the margins of the UN Normal Meeting.
“It’s my hope that, as two NATO nations, we must always deal with one another with friendship, not hostility,” Erdogan stated. “However the present trajectory doesn’t bode effectively.”
Ankara’s standing in Washington has soured over Turkey’s army marketing campaign towards Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, its deteriorating human rights report, Ankara’s gasoline exploration within the jap Mediterranean Sea and an ongoing US courtroom case towards a Turkish state-owned financial institution.
Relations additional soured when President Joe Biden in April grew to become the primary American president to formally acknowledge the century-old bloodbath of Armenians in modern-day Turkey as “genocide.”
However the biggest supply of pressure has been Turkey’s acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile protection system, which the US says poses a menace to NATO’s air protection capabilities and will compromise the safety of its personal F-35 stealth fighter jets.
In response to the multibillion-dollar buy, the Trump administration eliminated Turkey from the F-35 program and slapped restricted sanctions on Ankara underneath the Countering America’s Adversaries By way of Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
Biden and Erdogan mentioned the S-400 concern however didn’t attain a decision throughout their assembly on the NATO summit in June. US officers say they are going to keep the CAATSA sanctions and have threatened extra sanctions if Turkey makes one other main arms buy from Russia.
“We purchased F-35s. We paid $1.4 billion, and these F-35s weren’t given to us,” Erdogan stated. “America must first type this out.”
Erdogan’s feedback comply with a gathering between White Home nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan and his Turkish counterpart, Ibrahim Kalin, on Wednesday. In response to a US readout of the assembly, the pair “agreed on the significance of continued dialogue to boost the US-Turkey bilateral relationship.”
