US
to Turkey: Back off
As
anti-US allegations swirl, skepticism about Turkey’s reliability is
hardening in the Obama administration and Congress.
By NAHAL TOOSI
8/10/16, 12:10 AM CET
The Obama
administration has a message for Turkey: Tone it down.
A day after Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed frustration that U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry had yet to visit his country in the
wake of a failed coup attempt, a State Department official said the
U.S. is increasingly concerned about the language emanating from its
longtime NATO ally.
Much of that
language has been deeply anti-American, with Turkish media peddling
allegations that the Obama administration was behind the coup attempt
and even suggesting a Washington think tank had a role in it.
Erdoğan has, to
some extent, fanned the flames, while simultaneously reaching out to
U.S. rival Russia, which he visited Tuesday.
“This sort of
conspiracy theory, inflammatory rhetoric … is absolutely not
helpful,” State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said
during Tuesday’s daily briefing. She also told POLITICO: “We’re
very focused on lowering the temperature. We understand that this was
a serious situation, but at the same time the rhetoric doesn’t help
advance the situation.”
Her admonition hints
at growing frustration within the Obama administration over how to
deal with an increasingly fickle — but still important — partner
in the fight against Islamic State. It’s a frustration shared in
Congress, where aides say bipartisan skepticism about Turkey’s
reliability has hardened since the mid-July coup attempt.
In the weeks since
the putsch, President Barack Obama and his aides have repeatedly
condemned the coup plotters while also voicing concern about
Erdoğan’s subsequent imprisonment and firings of tens of thousands
of alleged coup sympathizers, many of them journalists and teachers.
In Turkey, however, America’s balanced reaction has been taken as
an insult.
“Western people
should not bother about the number of people that were arrested or
dismissed,” Erdoğan told France’s Le Monde, in an interview
published Monday. “We are struggling against a coup attempt,
against terrorists. The Western world must understand what we are
dealing with.”
Too little, too late
Erdogan also blasted
the U.S. in particular for not quickly extraditing Fethullah Gulen, a
Pennsylvania-based Muslim leader whom Turkey says masterminded the
coup attempt — with some Turkish officials saying the U.S. is
putting its entire relationship with their country at risk over
Gulen.
In his talk with Le
Monde, Erdoğan alluded to reports — which the State Department
will not confirm — that Kerry will visit Turkey later this month.
“It is late, too late,” he said. “This makes us sad. What more
do Americans need? Their strategic ally is facing a coup and it takes
them 45 days before sending anyone over? This is shocking.”
Perhaps the Turkish
president’s biggest poke in the U.S.’s eye, however, was his
visit Tuesday to Moscow, where he met with President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian leader has infuriated the Obama administration by
militarily shoring up Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria and through
its ongoing presence in Ukraine.
That Erdoğan, who
has long pushed for Assad’s ouster, wants to mend fences with Putin
was a strong signal of how angry he is with the United States. Just
last November, Turkey shot down a Russian bomber on the Syrian
border, an incident that badly damaged ties between Moscow and
Ankara.
Some observers said
the Obama administration’s measured reaction shows it isn’t
willing to be pushed around so easily.
Despite Erdoğan’s
frequent complaints in the past about U.S. cooperation with Kurdish
fighters battling the Assad regime in Syria, the U.S. hasn’t
stopped working with those rebels. And Obama himself has warned
Turkey’s leaders to stop promoting the notion that the U.S. backed
the coup attempt.
“This
administration already made up its mind that Erdogan needs them more
than they do need him,” said Randa Slim of the Middle East
Institute.
Others described the
administration’s response overall so far as “passive” — and
said it doesn’t seem to be working well to ease the tensions.
“My guess is
they’re saying, ‘Let’s be quiet. If we respond, it’ll make
things worse. And we still need the Turks on Syria and other things.’
Although those other things are a mystery,” said Steven Cook of the
Council on Foreign Relations.
The U.S. uses the
Incirlik military base in Turkey to help it launch airstrikes against
Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq. But it took months for
Turkey to agree to let the U.S. use that base, and if Turkey decides
to kick the Americans out, American officials and observers privately
admit that the U.S. could rely on bases in other countries.
At the same time, if
Turkey decides to lessen its cooperation with the U.S. in the fight
against the Islamic State, it is likely to suffer more because it’s
closer to the main theater of operations used by the terrorist
network, which already has staged attacks in Turkey.
Blaise Misztal of
the Bipartisan Policy Center said the coup attempt and its aftermath
“are threatening to break up this ossified pattern of U.S.-Turkish
relations,” which he said had long been built around the notion
that Turkey was a “necessary, if undesirable partner.”
“The possibility
that Erdoğan has gone too far is finally being openly discussed in
Washington,” he said.
Spreading concern
A congressional aide
confirmed that unhappiness with Turkey is spreading in Congress,
where Republican and Democratic lawmakers had long been alarmed about
Erdogan’s authoritarian tendencies. The notion that Kerry should
rush to Turkey following the allegations made against the United
States is absurd, the aide said.
“I’m not sure
why they would send somebody to be used as press opportunity for the
Turks to further berate for actions that we’re clearly not
responsible for,” the aide said.
Trudeau said she had
no information to offer on any potential Kerry trip to Turkey, but
she also pointed out that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff,
Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, did visit the country earlier this
month. (A Pentagon spokeswoman also alluded to that visit, insisting
high-level engagement remains robust.”)
Dunford is one of
two U.S. generals named in a complaint filed by a Turkish lawyer who
alleges that the U.S. military helped conspire with Turkish coup
plotters.
U.S. officials also
insist they cannot extradite Gulen without giving his case a proper
legal review.
Some Turkish media
outlets have questioned whether the Woodrow Wilson International
Center, a D.C.-based think tank, was involved in the failed coup
because its scholars had organized a conference in Turkey that was
held the same weekend as the July 15-16 attempt to overthrow Erdoğan.
In a blog post
Tuesday for the Wall Street Journal, Haleh Esfandiari, a top scholar
at the center, dismissed the allegations and compared them to the
types of conspiracy theories promoted by longtime U.S. nemesis Iran.
“Paranoia is
spreading like a virus in the region,” she warned.
Austin Wright
contributed to this report.
Authors:
Nahal Toosi
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