US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sat down with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday, in a meeting that will test his diplomatic skills as he navigates one of the US government’s most complex foreign relationships.
Tillerson is spending a day in the Turkish capital seeking to shore up support from a crucial Nato ally in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The US-led coalition fighting the group is backing Kurdish fighters as it prepares a campaign against the city of Raqqa, despite Turkish opposition.
Speaking to reporters before the trip, a senior State Department official said the Raqqa attack must be “militarily viable” though the US was aware of the Turkish government’s concerns about American support for the Kurdish fighters, whose separatist aspirations Turkey fears. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as part of the ground rules for the call.
Tension over the Raqqa fight is just one of a host of issues Tillerson will confront during the visit. Erdogan has stifled the independent news and the opposition in the wake of a July coup attempt, drawing concern from human rights groups. Turks will hold a referendum next month on whether to grant Erdogan even more power.
Seeks extradition
Erdogan has accused US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen of organizing the coup and has become increasingly impatient with the US for not turning him over. The State Department argues that the courts must handle Turkey’s extradition request. As the trip began, Turkey made another appeal for Gulen to be extradited.
“The Government of the Republic of Turkey and the Turkish people expect from the US the immediate extradition of Fethullah Gulen,” Turkey’s embassy to the US said in a news statement earlier this week.
Tillerson met with Prime Minister Binali Yildirim before his session with Erdogan. After that earlier meeting, Yildirim’s office issued a statement saying they discussed joint efforts in the fight against Islamic State and Turkey’s expectation that the US would send Gulen back home. The State Department, in a statement, said the two men “discussed working to enhance our critical security and economic ties in the region.”
Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp., had no formal diplomatic experience before taking the secretary of state job, though he spent years cultivating relationships with leaders around the world as he sought oil deals.
Crucial ally
Turkey is viewed as a critical Nato ally given its strategic geographic position between Europe and Asia, a bridge that has served as an entryway for refugees fleeing violence in Syria. The country hosts about 1,500 American military personnel and aircraft—as well as troops from Italy, Spain and elsewhere-at Incirlik Air Base, a staging point for the fight against Islamic State.
Erdogan has been blunt about his opposition toward the US support for Kurdish fighters, whose separatist aims are shared by a militant Kurdish group that has been fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s southeast for more than three decades. In an interview with Bloomberg last year, he said the US was “doing wrong before the eyes of the world” and endangering Turkey’s future by giving them weapons.
Turkish officials are also expected to protest the arrest in the US of a senior executive at one of Turkey’s largest state-owned banks on charges of conspiring to evade trade sanctions on Iran. Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a deputy chief executive officer at Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS, is accused of conspiring with Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-Turkish gold trader, to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through the US financial system on behalf of Iran and its companies. He was arrested on Monday.