« When Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Turkey on Sunday, talks meant to focus on NATO expansion and other thorny issues will be clouded by the devastating earthquake from which the country is still reeling. » Elizabeth Hagedorn reports in Al-Monitor on February 18, 2023.
Blinken’s six-day trip, which also includes stops in Turkey’s rival Greece and in Germany to attend the Munich Security Conference, was planned before the magnitude 7.8 earthquake left more than 43,000 people dead across Turkey and neighboring Syria.
Blinken is scheduled to visit Incirlik Air Base in southeastern Turkey, which has served as the main hub for aid flowing to Turkey’s earthquake victims. Blinken will also meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara to discuss how the US can bolster its earthquake assistance, the State Department said.
Nicholas Danforth, a nonresident senior research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, said the earthquake is likely to overshadow other aspects of the US-Turkey relationship during Blinken’s visit, his first to the country after more than two years in office.
“After the 2016 coup attempt, Washington learned the value of showing prompt and clear sympathy in the face of events like this,” Danforth said. “I think Blinken will try to take this opportunity to demonstrate solidarity and support in the aftermath of the tragedy.”
Blinken’s visit comes after years of tension between the United States and Turkey, a strategically important NATO ally with close relations to both Russia and Ukraine.
The Biden administration praised the Turkish government for its role in mediating a Russian-Ukrainian prisoner swap and a deal to allow Ukrainian grain shipments from the Black Sea, but was frustrated by its refusal to join in Western sanctions mounted against Russia for its invasion. Turkey has continued trade with Moscow, but sent arms to Kiev.
US ties with Turkey were strained when its NATO ally acquired Russian missile defense systems, prompting Washington to boot Ankara from its F-35 fighter program in 2019.
The United States also remains concerned by Turkey’s warming ties with the Syrian government, its threats of a renewed offensive against US-backed Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s moves toward authoritarianism.
During the top US diplomat’s visit, Turkish officials are likely to press Blinken on their request for F-16 fighter jets, the potential sale of which has been met with stiff resistance in Congress. Lawmakers have signaled they won’t approve the multi-billion-dollar sale unless Turkey signs off on Sweden and Finland’s bids to join NATO.
Stockholm and Helsinki’s membership requires the green light from all 30 NATO members’ legislatures. Turkey and Hungary are the remaining holdouts, although Budapest has said it would ratify the Nordic bids in early 2023.
Turkey has dragged its feet, citing concerns that the two Nordic states are harboring Kurdish separatists and supporters of the exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen. Ankara has more strongly objected to Sweden’s accession, particularly after recent demonstrations in Stockholm during which a protester burned a copy of the Quran. The Turkish president has since hinted at an openness to approving the Finnish bid separately.
Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, says Turkey could ratify Finland’s accession before NATO holds its next summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in July.
Finland joining the alliance on its own would be less of a foreign policy win for the Biden administration, said Cagaptay, but still “quite significant given that it’s kind of cruel at this stage to ask Turkey to do anything but earthquake relief and recovery.”
Turkey’s political bandwidth in the coming months will be consumed by its earthquake response and upcoming general elections, which are scheduled for May 14. Speculation is growing that Erdogan, who is seeking another term as Turkey’s president, will postpone the polls that according to Turkey’s constitution must occur by June 18.
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said last week that he expects his country and Sweden will be admitted before the July summit. Their accession will be high on Blinken’s agenda in Turkey, but analysts don’t expect his trip will yield any breakthroughs.
Even without any, Cagaptay said, « I think this will be a warm and friendly visit, as opposed to what would have been transactional business like before this terrible disaster.”
Al-Monitor on February 18, 2023 by Elizabeth Hagedorn.