Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on September 25.
This comes amid a flurry of foreign leaders flying into the US for the UN General Assembly. Erdogan and Trump have historically enjoyed a close relationship. However, Turkey’s frequent attacks on Israel mean that these kinds of meetings carry great weight.
Erdogan is expected to focus on arms deals while in the US.
"We are working on many Trade and Military Deals with the President, including the large-scale purchase of Boeing aircraft, a major F-16 Deal, and a continuation of the F-35 talks, which we expect to conclude positively," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
It’s worth recalling that during Trump’s first term in office, the Turkish president felt emboldened.
From 2017 to 2020, he engaged in a number of activities that expanded Ankara’s role. For instance, Turkey invaded Afrin in northwestern Syria in 2018, causing most of the Kurds to flee Afrin. Ankara also sought out US support for an invasion of the other Kurdish parts of Syria.
Turkey gets comfortable with the US
The US has backed the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces against ISIS. However, Turkey believed it could get the US to change tack.
In 2019, Ankara secured an agreement to invade an area of eastern Syria and attack the US Kurdish allies. Trump ordered US forces to move back as Ankara attacked.
Eventually, the crisis settled down, but the two Turkish operations led to atrocities against Kurds, including the murder of Hevrin Khalaf, a young Kurdish woman activist.
Ankara also took advantage of this sense of support by creating numerous crises with Greece. It sent out ships to claim that it was searching for energy resources. It issued numerous navigational notices to harass the Greeks. It also signed a deal with Libya and sent forces to Libya.
Most concerning, Ankara hosted Hamas leaders numerous times, indicating that Turkey believed it had a green light from Washington to conduct itself more aggressively.
The legacy of that aggressive period is that Ankara fundamentally reshaped its policy.
Edrogan reaches peak of power
Back in 2016, there had been an attempted coup in Turkey, and Erdogan used this as an excuse to consolidate power. As such, he was at the peak of his power over the last decade.
Ankara has also built up its military power. It has become a drone exporter and played a key role in Russia-Ukraine discussions as the war unfolded there in 2022.
Turkey has done more outreach to the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) economic blocs.
Ankara also increased its role in Africa. After backing Qatar in the Qatar crisis of 2017 against the other Gulf states, Turkey made up with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt.
Ankara threatened to reduce ties with Israel when the Abraham Accords were signed, apparently hoping it could derail the accords.
However, Turkey has now shifted course several times again. After turning Syrian rebels into proxies, it then returned to Syria after the Assad regime fell. It also encouraged Azerbaijan to fight Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Ankara has also hedged on ties to Iran and Russia.
As such, Turkey is at a crossroads. It used to talk of “zero problems” with its neighbors. Now, it has become a powerhouse in the region, patching up ties with most countries except Israel.
Ankara’s ruling AKP party backs Hamas in part because both have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
However, Ankara also wants to get back in the good graces of Washington. As such, it hopes that the new recognition of the State of Palestine by the UK, Australia and other countries, may bolster Turkey’s own influence in regards to policies on the Palestinians.
It also hopes it can return to the US F-35 program. Turkey, a NATO member, had been part of the program, but it was pushed out after it acquired S-400 air defense systems from Russia.
Turkey hopes that the Trump doctrine of transactional policies and supporting any friend who is open to doing business with the US will lead to newfound ties.
It also hopes to encourage the White House to pressure Israel regarding Gaza.