Secretary of State Rex Tillerson headed to Ankara Turkey late last week for a meeting with President Erdogan. Early indications are that he at least kept the bilateral dialogue open with the prickly Turkish president and his foreign policy team - but little more.
Although the NE Asia dust-up with Pyongyang over the North Korean nuclear program may be the most dangerous national security issue on Tillerson’s platter, dealing with Turkey is the most complicated. This was not going to be easy traveling for the SECSTATE under the best of circumstances.
Consider what Tillerson faced going in to the one-on-ones in Ankara:
- The Turkish president is still convinced we are harboring in the Poconos the alleged "mastermind" behind last July’s coup attempt, Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen; Erdodgan wants him extradited, and we’ve resisted -- as we should. This dispute soured Rex’s arrival from the get-go.
- Erdogan is furious we are supporting the Kurds as the lead assault force in the Raqqa attack; Ankara wants their Arab coalition in front and in charge of the assault. The problem? It’s the Kurds, not a Turkish-backed Sunni Arab coalition, who are the real fighters. We are right to support the Kurds; but Erdogan is correct that Sunni Arabs need to govern when Raqqa is cleared.
- The Putin-Erdogan bromance is fading. There is now a Russian base in northern Syria, hard by the Turkish border, making Erdogan apoplectic and even more unsettled.
- Erdogan is threatening to unravel the deal with the EU on refugee resettlement that has, for the time being, kept thousands housed in Turkish camps and away from Europe's borders.
On top of all this is the Turkish referendum on April 16th that, if successful (as seems likely), will anoint Erdogan with unprecedented executive power, furthering his push to authoritarian rule. In a demonstration of his hyper-sensitivity in the spin-up to the referendum, Erdogan has resorted to Nazi comparisons in criticizing fellow NATO allies Germany and The Netherlands for their refusal to allow Turkish politicians to campaign for the referendum in their countries.
Into this charged climate stepped our SECSTATE Thursday. Atmospherically, he was clearly trying to leverage our President’s admiration of strong leaders (Trump so far has been circumspect in his comments about Turkey!) to nudge Erdogan on a path toward reconciliation with Washington and our European allies. This was never going to be easy; and judging from published statements following the meeting, it wasn't. Not surprisingly, the dominant disagreement appeared to center on who leads the Raqqa attack, with Tillerson's counterpart voicing thinly disguised frustration with U.S. support of a strong Kurdish role.
- What was surprising was the SECSTATE, during his Ankara news conference, appearing to step back from a long-standing US demand that Syrian president Assad step aside; this shift brings us closer to Moscow's line - and Iran's! Whether it helps in the fight against ISIS, however, is anyone's guess.
Leaving Ankara in the midst of this turmoil must have been a relief for Tillerson. To his great credit, he rearranged his schedule to follow-up his Turkey visit to meet with NATO colleagues in Brussels -- a welcomed development, to calm allies nervous both about Russian military exercises and our President's rhetoric.
With these key meetings behind him, Tillerson will shortly face his most important challenges to date: helping President Trump steer a forceful but intelligent course next week in Mar-a-Lago with the Chinese president; and then confronting Vladimir Putin in Moscow the week after. Rex will need both courage and wisdom to make these meetings a success.
