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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