On Tuesday President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Donald Trump met at the White House to conduct talks concerning Syria and a press conference (video here) laden with mutually congratulatory statements. Trump’s opening bit was noticeably shorter than his guest’s and perhaps less rehearsed. But what got the most attention online was the bloody outright brawl outside the Turkish embassy in D.C. Americans are starting to become aware of the growing tensions between the US, Turkey, and Kurds of many nationalities.
Our alliance with the Kurds (YPG/SDF/PYD) in the fight against Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) upsets Erdogan’s vision of the synonymous nature of Kurdish identity and affiliation with the Kurdish terrorist group in Turkey, the PKK. Members of the PYD came forward in the fall to convey that the Syrian Kurdish state-building project ‘Rojava’ and it’s forces are not affiliated with the PKK, falling deaf on the ears of Turkish nationalists. If you like to read more about Turkey’s role in Syria, click here for one of The Fulda Gap’s many articles on the subject.
Trump and Erdogan shakes hands at their White House press conference.
#TurkishEmbassy trended on the 16th on Twitter, where videos circulated of Erdogan’s suit-wearing security personnel swarming and brutalizing a group of Kurdish/Turkish American protesters outside the building. US police reacted accordingly and attacked the armed Turkish security with their batons. The faces of bloodied civilians pass by the cameraman, while from another vantagepoint Erdogan is onlooking in his car maybe 50 feet away. From this perspective it seems the Turkish president directed his security men to approach the protesters from within his parked car, only to get out of the car and into the nearest building.
Ambulances had to be called to the scene to take away those with severe injuries.
At the press conference; As if reading the address for the first time, yet worded in a way that perfectly fits Trump’s awkward diction, the President proceeded to pronounce Erdogan’s name incorrectly every time (pronouncing it Er-do-Gan instead of Er-do-Wan), commenting on “Turkish courage in war [being] legendary” (a bit of a loaded statement), as well as mentioning Turkey’s struggle against terror, domestically against the Kurdish PKK and Daesh in Syria. Trump displayed a very limited understanding of Turkey’s relationship with the US, mentioning our recent arms sales to the Turks and their involvement in the Korean War, but then altogether omitting NATO membership.
Erdogan stuck to promoting his democratic values, also congratulating Trump on his “legendary” win in November. Erdogan seeks to improve other relations in the economic and military realms, but made an effort to out the United States’ for their current policies in Syria. He cited a long relationship with the US diplomatic relationship with the US as well as military. Bringing up what Trump failed to mention, the Turkish president reminded the audience that both countries are tied to each other in economic, diplomatic, and military capacities through the G20 (Group of Twenty: group for global financial stability observation), the United Nations, and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Org). Within such structures the US and Turkey must settle on an agreement or perhaps carry on with their objectives in Syria without breaking the de facto and very real non-belligerency agreements that come along with being members of these institutions. We see Erdogan attempting to play this card as well as blatantly condemning the US for supporting what nationalist Turks perceive as foreign Kurdish terrorist groups in Syria.
In the Syrian peace talks, official FSA (the defected Free Syrian Army) representatives are backed by Turkey. This remains so not only in negotiations, but on the ground as well in a symbiotic relationship. At this time Turkish forces or not mobile, but they are present within Syria, advising, and training with FSA fighters. The former Turkish operation in Syria, Operation Euphrates Shield (which ceased to be in late winter), has been rebranded as an FSA front: the Eastern Shield Army. Although fighting between this group, the Kurds, Daesh, and government forces has been minimal and almost non-existent in the last few months, their objectives remain the same: to destabilize the Kurdish autonomy project in Northern Syria. Besides Trump’s promise to destroy ISIS/Daesh, something the Kurds are more than willing to do, there doesn’t seem to be much holding him back from avoiding confrontation over the issue of a contentious alliance with the YPG. But for now the US’s objectives in Syria remain the same. To read up on the history of Kurdish-Turkish relations click here.
Despite being at odds with one another over the issue of the US’s alliance with the Kurdish YPG against Daesh in Syria, the two men are remarkably similar in terms of their policy and public demeanor. They have become known as political ‘frenemies,’ a strained yet civil relationship where their differences do not detract from their efforts to supply each other with compliments on their military and political victories. On the day Erdogan’s AKP party’s drafted constitutional referendum was adopted, Trump called the leader to congratulate him on a narrow–and questionable–success (by 1.3%), much like his own in November 2016. Both lead as populist strongmen who are intolerant of critique from the media and demand compliance rather than democracy. Trump’s proclivity for executive orders is comparable to the AKP referendum’s aims to consolidate Erdogan’s executive powers. But for better or for worse, both are stubborn and likely to follow their own ambitions: The US behind the YPG and Turkey behind the FSA.
