There are ‘global issues that we both have on our plates’, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, mysteriously, when he met with his Turkish counterpart last week. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, standing by Blinken’s side, thought the same. ‘We will focus on areas of partnership in bilateral and regional issues.’ Diplomacy as usual, then.
Behind the boring platitudes lies a serious rift between Turkey and the United States. In late December, Syrian and Turkish defence ministers met in Moscow in the first proper meeting between the two governments in a decade. There are plans for another meeting between foreign ministers that could lead to a direct meeting between Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Rapprochement between Turkey and Syria would bring about the most significant reshaping of the war in Syria since Russia’s brutal bombing campaign tipped it in Assad’s favour in 2015.
It’s not only the fate of millions of Syrian civilians at stake.
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