Friday, July 23, 2021

A COOL, CAUTIOUS CALM: US-TURKEY RELATIONS SIX MONTHS INTO THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION by NICHOLAS DANFORTH

A COOL, CAUTIOUS CALM: US-TURKEY RELATIONS SIX MONTHS INTO THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION

NICHOLAS DANFORTH

JULY 2021


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

President Joe Biden has made it six months into his term without a new U.S.-Turkish crisis. Amidst simmering tensions, strategic disagreements, and so many potential flashpoints, even this comparative calm counts as an achievement. It is a product of both the White House’s new approach to Turkey and Ankara’s eagerness to maintain the appearance of good relations in the face of more pressing problems. Biden has been appropriately cool and consistent in his dealings with Turkey, emphasizing human rights in his rhetoric and seeking to establish a new tone for the relationship that will give the United States greater leverage. This has corresponded with a period of consolidation and greater 

caution in Turkish foreign policy. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for his part, has been on an international charm offensive as he confronts regional isolation, economic turbulence, and his own dwindling poll numbers. 

Biden and Erdoğan’s June 14 meeting in Brussels, on the sidelines of the NATO summit, seemed to confirm the comfortably dysfunctional contours of this new relationship. None of the two countries’ outstanding issues were resolved, but both leaders walked out gamely insisting they could be.1 The challenge for Washington now is to maintain the benefits of Biden’s current approach as conditions in Turkey and its region inevitably shift in unpredictable ways. Rather than appear over-eager to improve relations, Washington should simply leave the ball in Ankara’s court. This means staying the course while minimizing Turkey’s ability to disrupt U.S. and European interests. At best, Biden can seek to 

establish a modus vivendi with Erdoğan premised on perpetuating the status quo in the absence of any further provocations.


NO CALL’S A GOOD CALL

For months after Biden’s inauguration, one of the 

most-discussed aspects of the president’s Turkey 

policy was something he didn’t do: call Erdoğan. 

While Ankara requested a call with Biden in 

December, the new administration deflected the 

request.2 Turkish and American commentators 

soon came to see the non-call as a conscious 

snub. Whether Biden’s cold shoulder represented 

a calculated strategy or was simply the result of 

too many competing priorities, the administration 

proved happy to make the most of it. In response 

to a question in early March, White House Press 

Secretary Jen Psaki casually told a reporter she was 

sure Biden would call Erdoğan “at some point.”3

When the call finally came on April 23, it was not 

the one Erdoğan wanted. The official readout 

emphasized Biden’s commitment to expanding 

areas of cooperation and effectively managing 

disagreements.4 But the real substance of the call

was an advance warning that Biden would break 

with longstanding U.S. policy the next day and 

officially recognize the 1915 Armenian genocide. 

Biden’s statement, duly released on the genocide’s 

April 24 commemoration day, took pains to keep 

the focus squarely on commemorating the suffering 

of the victims rather than casting blame on the 

perpetrators. “Turkey” did not even appear in the 

text, which referred only to “Ottoman authorities.” 

Yet after a succession of U.S. presidents pointedly 

refused to use the term “genocide” for fear of 

antagonizing a longstanding NATO ally, Biden’s 

statement showed just how much the U.S.-Turkish 

relationship had changed.5


As striking as Biden’s non-call was Erdoğan’s 

subsequent non-response. After decades of 

apocalyptic speculation, Ankara proved surprisingly 

restrained in the immediate aftermath of the genocide statement. Erdoğan said that Biden’s “unjust and untrue” comments opened a “deep wound” 

in the bilateral relationship.6 But he nonetheless 

kept the focus on his planned meeting with the U.S. 

president in June. “We now need to put aside our 

disagreements and look at what steps we can take 

from now on,” Erdoğan declared, emphasizing that 

he hoped the two leaders could still “open the door 

for a new period” in relations. Seemingly responding 

to the suggestion Ankara’s reaction had been 

underwhelming, a pro-Erdoğan columnist explained 

that “Turkish policymakers seek to ensure that the 

magnitude and timing of their response won’t hurt 

their country’s strategic interests.”7

In the immediate aftermath of his June 14 meeting 

with Biden, Erdoğan remained optimistic, saying 

that there were no problems between the United 

States and Turkey that could not be resolved. But 

there appeared little in the meeting itself to justify 

this optimism. Despite some predictions of a grand 

bargain, Erdoğan admitted the two sides had made 

no progress on resolving the tensions surrounding 

Turkey’s sanctioned purchase of Russian S-400 

air defense missiles. Rather than a make-or-break 

moment, Erdoğan and Biden’s tête-à-tête seemed 

more like a ratification of the status quo


For now, at least, Washington has implicitly 

conveyed its intention to be less accommodating 

toward Ankara’s concerns. Ankara, in turn, has 

implicitly conveyed that it has no choice but to be 

accommodating, at least up to a point. The following 

sections explore how this basic dynamic has been 

shaped by domestic developments in Turkey, and 

how it has played out in a number of key policy 

areas. 


ERDOĞAN’S CHARM DEFENSIVE


Erdoğan has never lacked for political difficulties, but 

he now faces a more impressive array than usual. 

In November 2020, he accepted his son-in-law’s 

sudden resignation as finance minister and has 

cycled through two central bank heads in equally 

dramatic fashion since then.8 Not surprisingly, this 

has taken its toll on the Turkish economy. The lira 

has fallen roughly 20% since the summer of 2020, 

and the central bank’s net international reserves 

are now at their lowest level since 2003.9 With 

the opposition going on the offensive over the 

government’s financial mismanagement, Erdoğan 

has tried to keep the focus on national security, but 

here too there have been setbacks. In February, a 

failed rescue operation ended with the death of 

13 hostages held by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party 

(PKK) in northern Iraq.10 In the aftermath, Erdoğan 

turned once more against Turkey’s pro-Kurdish 

political party: A government-aligned prosecutor 

opened a court case to shut down the Peoples’ 

Democratic Party (HDP) and ban its members from 

politics. Throughout all this, Erdoğan’s poll numbers 

have continued to drop. In May, one credible survey 

showed him trailing several potential challengers in 

a hypothetical presidential race.11

Internationally, Ankara has also begun to feel 

the accumulated backlash from several years 

of foreign policy adventurism. In December 

2020, Washington belatedly imposed Countering 

America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act 

(CAATSA) sanctions on Turkey’s defense sector in 

response to Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 

missiles. At the same time, the EU also moved

incrementally toward more substantial sanctions 

over Turkish energy exploration in contested 

waters southeast of the Greek island of Rhodes. 

At the regional level, Ankara’s isolation became 

more acutely felt during fall 2020: the Abraham 

Accords demonstrated a new alignment between 

Israel and the Arab Gulf states while the Eastern 

Mediterranean Gas Forum deepened cooperation 

between an array of countries including Greece, 

Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel. Meanwhile, relations 

with Damascus, Russia, and Iran remained volatile: 

Despite a series of cease-fires and a growing 

number of Turkish troops, the Syrian regime’s 

desire to retake Idlib has created a constant risk 

of conflict.

[Erdoğan’s] goal seemed to be to generate 

as much positive momentum in Turkey’s 

bilateral relationships as possible without 

fundamentally altering any of the policies that 

had strained those relationships in the first 

place.

Against this backdrop, Erdoğan launched a 

concerted charm defensive aimed at easing Turkey’s 

isolation and preventing tensions with Washington 

and Brussels from doing further damage to the 

economy. His goal seemed to be to generate as 

much positive momentum in Turkey’s bilateral 

relationships as possible without fundamentally 

altering any of the policies that had strained those 

relationships in the first place. Thus, in January 

the Turkish foreign minister ambitiously declared 

that Ankara was ready to launch a road map for 

reconciliation with France, hold an international 

conference on the eastern Mediterranean with 

the European Union, resume exploratory talks 

with Greece, “set up a joint committee” to solve 

the S-400 issue with Washington, “fix our ties” 

with the United Arab Emirates, and take positive 

steps to “put things back on track” with Egypt.12

Unaddressed at the time, and still unclear today, 

is what the substance behind all these initiatives 

might be.


DEMOCRACY AND DÉTENTE 

In response to Ankara’s optimistic outreach, the 

Biden administration has sought to communicate in 

its rhetoric a renewed emphasis on human rights and 

democracy. In February, the State Department spoke 

out against the Turkish government’s crackdown 

on student protestors, making a point to “strongly 

[condemn] the anti-LGBTQI rhetoric surrounding the 

demonstrations.”13 The next month, when Turkey 

withdrew from an international agreement aimed at 

preventing violence against women, Biden declared 

that the “sudden and unwarranted” withdrawal 

was “disheartening” and “deeply disappointing.”14

The State Department also announced that it was 

“closely following… troubling moves” against a 

prominent opposition lawmaker and “monitoring” 

efforts to close the pro-Kurdish HDP, “a decision that 

would… further undermine democracy in Turkey.”15

This new tone has been a striking departure 

from that of the previous administration. But it 

remains less clear how effective this rhetoric is 

and what further measures Washington might 

consider. As all of these developments attest, 

Erdoğan still appears committed to doing what he 

feels is necessary to stay in power. The closure of 

the HDP in particular would represent a dramatic 

step toward authoritarianism.16 The risk is that the 

further Erdoğan continues on this path, the more 

Washington’s steady stream of condemnation and 

concern will begin to look ineffectual rather than 

principled. 

There are certainly those who are already pushing for 

more forceful action. In late April, several prominent 

Democratic senators announced their plans to 

reintroduce the Turkey Human Rights Promotion 

Act of 2021, which would impose Global Magnitsky 

sanctions and travel bans on Turkish officials 

responsible for the detention of journalists and 

political prisoners.17 If the human rights situation 

in Turkey continues to deteriorate, it is entirely 

possible that targeted sanctions would be imposed 

on select Turkish officials. Realistically, though, 

the appetite for such measures would be heavily 

influenced by the state of U.S.-Turkish bilateral ties. 


So long as Erdoğan opts to maintain the current 

state of foreign policy détente, Washington will 

be hesitant to take more aggressive measures on 

human rights. 

The European Union recently demonstrated 

how awkward it can be when economic pressure 

succeeds in securing foreign policy concessions 

from Erdoğan without any corresponding 

democratic progress. For Brussels, Turkey’s conflict 

with Greece and Cyprus emerged in the late 

summer of 2020 as the leading cause of tension 

with Ankara. Though EU countries differed on 

how aggressively to respond — with France joining 

Greece in pushing for sanctions and Germany 

seeking further negotiations — they came together 

to credibly threaten sanctions if Turkey continued 

on a provocative course.18 In response, Ankara 

lowered the temperature, pulling back the Oruç 

Reis drill ship from contested waters, restarting 

“exploratory talks” with Athens, and discussing the 

possibility of renewed Cyprus negotiations. 

Yet in its eagerness to capitalize on this geopolitical 

success, Brussels appeared to be giving carte 

blanche to Erdoğan’s domestic repression. In April, 

European Council President Charles Michel and 

European Commission President Ursula von der 

Leyen came to Ankara in order to emphasize the 

“carrot” side of Brussels’ carrot and stick approach. 

Praising Ankara’s “more constructive attitude,” EU 

officials announced that if the “positive momentum” 

continued, they could move ahead with a cooperative 

agenda that included an upgraded customs union 

and visa liberalization.19 The problem was, however, 

that this positivity coincided with both Ankara’s 

high-profile backsliding on women’s rights and its 

move to close the HDP.20 As a result, the timing of 

the visit telegraphed more clearly than Brussels 

intended how easily Erdoğan could sideline human 

rights criticism with a modicum of foreign policy 

cooperation. 


As with the United States, Turkey’s ties with the EU 

seem to have reached an equilibrium where both 

sides know they will not dramatically improve under

Erdogan's undemocratic rule. But  both sides are

equally aware they will not worsen on account of 

human rights violations alone. A month after Michel 

and von der Leyen’s visit, the European Parliament 

issued its “toughest” report yet. The document 

condemned Turkey’s democratic regression, 

demanded principled conditionality for any further 

cooperation, and even suggested EU accession 

negotiations could be suspended.21 But the damage 

was already done. The crucial point for Ankara was 

not necessarily to secure closer ties with the EU, 

but simply to maintain the market-calming illusion 

that such progress might be just over the horizon. 

Indeed, even in the realm of foreign policy, the 

“positive momentum” in the eastern Mediterranean 

appears more like a pause than any momentum 

per se. Turkey’s exploratory talks with Greece are 

certainly an improvement over the saber-rattling of 

last summer, but the latest round follows over 60 

previous ones, and the two sides have yet to formally 

agree on which issues they are actually prepared 

to negotiate.22 On Cyprus, three days of talks in 

April ended with U.N. Secretary-General António 

Guterres concluding that “at the end of our efforts, 

we have not yet found enough common ground to 

allow for the resumption of formal negotiations.”23

Ersin Tatar, the Erdoğan-backed president of the 

unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, 

has pushed for ratifying the island’s division 

through a “two-state solution,” which the Greek 

side has repeatedly rejected out of hand. 

In May, Israel’s war with Hamas created both new 

opportunities and obstacles for Turkey’s regional 

diplomacy. By increasing tension between Israel 

and its new Arab partners, the conflict helped lessen 

Turkey’s fears of isolation. Erdoğan made a show of 

coordinating his support for the Palestinians with 

Arab leaders such as Jordan’s King Abdullah II and 

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman rather than trying to 

upstage them, as he sometimes has in the past. But, 

of course, Erdoğan’s inflammatory rhetoric also set 

back any prospect of improved ties with Israel. And 

when he went on to accuse Biden of having “blood 

on his hands,” it demonstrated just how quickly 

Turkey’s strained ties with America’s partners can

create further strain with Washington.24 Yet, even 

here, Ankara’s desire to promote the pretense of a 

positive agenda proved irrepressible. On June 13, 

one Turkish journalist reported that officials were 

“hopeful that a new era between Israel and Turkey 

could begin with the ouster of Netanyahu.”25

More positive, though still far from complete, has 

been Turkey’s attempted rapprochement with 

Egypt under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Ankara 

has been eager to advertise the progress of this 

process at every stage, with Cairo more cautiously 

insisting it expects concrete concessions from 

Ankara.26 Officials from the two countries finally met 

in May, though neither side appeared particularly 

enthusiastic about the outcome.27 One encouraging 

sign is the fact that Cairo and Ankara are both 

supporting the current peace process in Libya. The 

two governments continue to back different actors 

and advance irreconcilable demands — Turkey 

hopes to maintain a military presence in Libya and 

preserve the maritime delimitation deal it signed 

in 2019. But with Libyan elections scheduled for 

December, Ankara appears willing to work through 

the country’s fractious political process to advance 

its goals. The most tangible sign of Erdoğan’s 

rapprochement with Egypt to date is his willingness 

to suppress anti-Sissi criticism from Istanbul-based 

Muslim Brotherhood TV channels. Ironically, rather 

than expand freedom within Turkey, Erdoğan’s 

efforts to relieve his regional isolation have led him 

to simply target new media outlets on behalf of 

another autocrat. 


RUSSIA AND REGIONAL CONFLICTS

Washington has quietly encouraged Turkey’s détente 

in the eastern Mediterranean while struggling to 

develop a positive agenda on a number of other 

regional issues, including Afghanistan, Ukraine, 

and Syria. Looming over these efforts is Ankara’s 

complex relationship with Russia, which continues 

to confound hopes for U.S.-Turkish cooperation. 

The most immediate obstacle, from Washington’s 

perspective, is the impasse over Turkey’s new 

S-400 missiles. In the aftermath of Biden’s

election, Ankara again proposed a working group to 

resolve the issue, and yet the two sides remain at 

loggerheads.28 Washington insists Ankara give up 

the missiles, while Ankara insists it will keep them 

and wants Washington to give up its sanctions. 

With Washington officially notifying Turkey of its 

removal from the F-35 fighter jet program in April, 

the issue appears to have come to a standstill.29

The challenge for both sides is now preventing this 

dispute from spilling over into other bilateral files.

If Ankara and Washington are able to work 

together constructively in Afghanistan, 

it could lay the groundwork for targeted 

cooperation in the future. Conversely, if they 

prove unable to, it could serve as a cautionary 

tale about the dangers of seeking Turkish 

support.

One test will be whether the Washington and 

Ankara can compartmentalize their differences to 

cooperate in Afghanistan. After Biden announced 

he would withdraw U.S. forces from the country, 

the State Department revealed that Turkey would 

host talks between the Taliban and the Afghan 

government aimed at ensuring post-withdrawal 

stability. The choice appeared to confirm that, 

despite giving Erdoğan the cold shoulder, the new 

administration was still eager to provide Ankara 

with opportunities to cooperate on areas of mutual 

interest. Initially, concerns emerged that Ankara 

might use its role in the talks as leverage with 

Washington on the S-400 and other issues.30 But 

these became moot when talks were delayed and 

derailed by a host of problems unrelated to Turkey. 

Focus then shifted to the question of whether 

Turkish forces could run the Kabul airport after the 

U.S. withdrawal.31 If Ankara and Washington are 

able to work together constructively in Afghanistan, 

it could lay the groundwork for targeted cooperation 

in the future. Conversely, if they prove unable to, it 

could serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers 

of seeking Turkish support.

The role of Erdoğan’s relationship with Russia in 

limiting the possibility of cooperation was also on 

display when Russian-Ukrainian tensions surged 

following the build-up of Russian troops on the 

Ukrainian border in April. Erdoğan was quick to 

demonstrate diplomatic solidarity with Ukraine, 

holding a personal meeting with President Volodymyr 

Zelenskiy in Istanbul at which he expressed support 

for the country’s territorial integrity.32 Speculation 

surged as to whether Turkish drones could play 

the same role in Donbas as they had in Nagorno

Karabakh, giving Ukraine an advantage over its 

Russian-backed adversaries.33 But while Ankara’s 

diplomatic stance irritated Moscow, Erdoğan did 

not appear willing to provide the kind of support, 

political or military, that would have generated real 

Russian retaliation. In the words of one analyst, 

“for all its swagger, Ankara makes sure competition 

with Moscow does not get out of hand” and thus 

seeks to “avoid conflict without losing face.”34

As Ankara tries to sell itself to Washington as 

a necessary partner in countering Russia, the 

contrast with its actual behavior appears even 

more dramatic in other parts of Eastern Europe. 

In May, the Belarusian government forced down 

a passenger plane flying through its airspace to 

seize a dissident onboard. Ankara, which has 

engaged in its own extra-legal efforts to capture 

dissidents abroad, subsequently sough to water 

down a joint NATO statement condemning the 

Minsk government.35 Specifically, Turkey objected 

to language calling for the release of political 

prisoners and supporting EU sanctions.36 The 

Belarusian foreign minister, in turn, expressed his 

country’s gratitude to Turkey for its solidarity.37

Perhaps the biggest question moving forward is how 

Turkey’s attempted balancing act between Russia 

and the United States will play out in Syria. The 

province of Idlib has long proven the most difficult 

place for Ankara to keep its competition with 

Moscow in check. Over the past five years, multiple 

Russian-backed regime offensives have pushed 

Turkish-backed rebels and millions of refugees 

into a smaller and smaller patch of territory. 

Each offensive has ended with a Turkish-Russian 

ceasefire agreement, followed by a pause, followed 

by a new offensive. Since last spring, Turkey has 

tried to break this dynamic by deploying at least 

10,000 troops to the province to prevent a new 

regime advance.38 So far, Turkey’s show of force 

has worked. But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad 

appears intent on eventually retaking much of the 

remaining territory. The risk is that Ankara thinks 

it has deterred the Syrian regime and the regime 

thinks Ankara is bluffing. Were Russia to support a 

new regime offensive, once again bombing Turkish 

forces, the situation could prove explosive.39

In northeastern Syria, a tenuous truce has also 

endured since the Turkish incursion of October 

2019. At least 1,000 U.S. troops remain deployed 

there alongside the Kurdish-led People’s Protection 

Units (YPG). Biden has restored U.S. stabilization 

assistance to the region while signaling his 

commitment to continued counterterrorism 

cooperation with the YPG.40 But the administration 

has yet to develop a clear long-term plan for its 

presence in northeastern Syria or articulate how far 

its commitment to the region’s autonomy will go. 

This creates a degree of uncertainty that Turkey, the 

regime, or the regime’s backers might eventually 

seek to exploit. Washington would undoubtedly 

respond forcefully to a clear attack against U.S. 

partners. But Biden may be forced to develop a 

policy on the fly if another actor decides to push 

back, perhaps in a more subtle way, against the 

current status quo. 

CONCLUSION: A HOSTILE DANCE

Relations between Turkey and the West have 

come to resemble a hostile dance. Both sides 

are committed to policies that are guaranteed to 

antagonize the other, but neither side is ready to risk 

the consequences of a real rupture. Thus, even as 

Washington and Brussels have grown increasingly 

frustrated with Turkey’s foreign policy provocations, 

and proven increasingly willing to threaten sanctions 

in response, they have been eager to seize on any 

evidence that a positive agenda is possible. Ankara, 

in turn, has been willing to dial back tensions in 

response to mounting economic pressure and 

regional isolation. The opening months of the 

Biden administration have shown how these two 

dynamics can come together to produce a period 

of relative calm in the U.S.-Turkish relationship. But 

the political, ideological, and geopolitical dynamics 

that drove previous confrontations have not 

fundamentally changed.41 As Erdoğan faces further 

obstacles in his quest to retain power, his incentives 

might again shift to prioritize confrontation over 

conciliation, creating a new cycle of antagonism. 

In short, the Biden administration appears to be 

managing Washington’s relationship with Turkey 

about as well as possible, but the challenge could 

quickly become harder.

Moving forward, Biden should further clarify U.S. 

expectations for continued calm with Erdoğan. In 

coordination with European capitals, Washington 

should articulate what aggressive steps — 

from further energy exploration in the eastern 

Mediterranean to cross border operations in Syria 

— will preclude even the pretense of positive ties. 

Future tensions are inevitable. But so long as 

Erdoğan accepts the terms of the current modus 

vivendi, Biden should welcome the chance to 

ignore him and focus on the rest of his international 

agenda.
















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