U.S. and Turkish foreign ministers meet in bid to reconcile differences over the detention by Ankara of an American pastor
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is likely trying to de-escalate one of the country’s biggest rows with the United States in recent history to avoid an economic crisis.
Washington imposed sanctions on Turkey’s Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, freezing their assets in the U.S., claiming the two “played leading roles in the arrest and detention of Pastor [Andrew] Brunson.”
The crisis was sparked by a court decision to send American citizen Brunson to house arrest, instead of freeing him.
Brunson had spent nearly two years behind bars over terrorism charges. He faces up to 35 years over allegations of connections to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which both Ankara and Washington consider a terrorist organization, as well as links to Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Erdogan accuses Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt, a charge the latter denies. Washington’s refusal to extradite Gulen has caused a major strain in relations with Turkey.
Within hours of the sanctions announcement, Turkey threatened to retaliate, calling the move “a disrespectful intervention into our judiciary.”
Turkish officials have repeatedly insisted that an independent judiciary and not politicians will decide Brunson’s fate.
“This is the most significant crisis in nearly five decades in their relationship,” Soner Cagaptay, Director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, told The Media Line.
However, there have been signs that both sides seek to deescalate the crisis.
Turkey’s Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, who is also Erdogan’s son-in-law, said Turkey would like to find a solution through dialogue and diplomacy.
Cagaptay said an important point is that Erdogan has refrained from personally responding to the sanctions.
“This is very unusual, it signals to me that Erdogan is trying to get out of this and come down the ladder because I think that Ankara is feeling the economic pain from the crisis,” he said.
Aykan Erdemir, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former parliamentarian with the main Turkish opposition party, supported this viewpoint.
“Most of the rhetorical push back against U.S. sanctions came from his aides. Erdogan’s strategic silence stems from his desire to secure maneuvering space,” he explained to The Media Line.
Erdemir said that Erdogan has shown a willingness to pull a U-turn in the face of possible sanctions, specifically when Germany threatened such consequences if Turkish-German journalist Deniz Yucel was not released from behind bars.
In anticipation of the U.S. sanctions, Turkey’s lira hit an all-time low. The country’s economy has been significantly struggling this year with the currency falling over 20 percent. The central bank this week increased its 2018 estimated inflation rate from 8 percent to 13 percent.
Simon Waldman, an analyst focused on the Middle East at the Istanbul Policy Center, stated that Erdogan will want it to appear as though he is playing tough with Washington to appeal to his base in which anti-American sentiment is popular, but economics will force a more conciliatory tone.
“In public, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not back down,” Waldman wrote in an email to The Media Line. “However, behind the scenes there will no doubt be serious concern and attempt to smooth over the rift with the U.S.”
Another sign of possible de-escalation was a meeting held Friday in Singapore between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Thereafter, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said that the two men agreed to try to resolve the dispute. For his part, Cavusoglu described the talks as “very constructive.”
The day after the sanctions were announced, a senior U.S. general held scheduled talks with officials in Ankara, showing that while there was a political crisis, the crucial military relationship between the countries continues.
In a previous crisis last year, when the U.S. suspended visa services to Turkish citizens over the detention of local employees of the American government in Turkey, Ankara immediately matched Washington’s move and suspended visa services for U.S. citizens.
Such an immediate reaction in policy has not happened this time and there is good reason for Ankara to vert a full-blown crisis.
The limited scope of the sanctions “was meant as a warning shot to turkey,” Max Hoffman, Associate Director of National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress, contended to The Media Line.
Ilnur Cevik, a senior adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told The Associated Press that Ankara was focused on maintaining ties with Washington.
“What the Turkish side is doing is not burning all the bridges but trying to keep the bridge intact and try to salvage whatever is left of the relations,” he said.
Media reports from both the U.S. and Turkey claimed there had been an agreement to eventually release Brunson but there was disagreement on when that would happen and whose fault it was for the deal falling through.
After the threat of sanctions, the Washington Post reported that Trump made a deal with Erdogan to exchange Brunson for the release of a Turkish citizen by Israel.
A Turkish media outlet reported that Erdogan denied the claim.
“It’s not an entirely rational calculation on either side,” Hoffman concluded. “ There are very important strategic ties between the U.S. and Turkey and sober-minded people in those governments would like to preserve those ties.”