Turkish and U.S. officials are set to hold talks within the scope of the strategic mechanism that was established to further strengthen ties in Washington on Thursday, the Turkish foreign ministry said.
Türkiye's Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Önal will meet his U.S. counterpart Wendy Sherman, and Victoria Nuland, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, as part of the Türkiye-U.S. Strategic Mechanism, said a ministry statement.
Bilateral relations as well as regional issues and international developments will be discussed during the consultations, the statement added.
On Oct. 31, 2021, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden met in Rome and agreed to establish a strategic mechanism that promotes high-level dialogue and addresses issues on which Türkiye and the U.S. do not fully agree, along with issues they are working on.
During the April 4 visit of Nuland to Ankara, the Türkiye-U.S. Strategic Mechanism was launched.
On May, 18, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken met in New York for the first meeting of the Turkiye-U.S. Strategic Mechanism "to reaffirm their strong cooperation as partners and NATO Allies," according to a joint statement from Türkiye and U.S.
Türkiye-U.S. relations have been strained in recent years due to the latter's cooperation with the PYD-YPG/PKK terrorist organization in Syria, its stance toward the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), disagreements over Türkiye's purchase of Russia's S-400 air defense system and Washington's sanctions against Türkiye.
The sale of U.S. weapons to Türkiye became contentious after Ankara acquired Russian-made S-400 defense missile systems. The deal triggered U.S. sanctions as well as Türkiye’s removal from the F-35 fighter jet program.
Terrorism
Türkiye has long criticized U.S. support for the terrorist YPG. While the U.S. claims it fights Daesh terrorists with the help of its YPG allies, Türkiye says using one terror group to fight another makes no sense.
The PKK is a designated terrorist organization in the U.S., Türkiye and the European Union, and Washington's support for its Syrian affiliate has been a major strain on bilateral relations with Ankara. The U.S. primarily partnered with the YPG in northeastern Syria in its fight against the Daesh terrorist group. On the other hand, Türkiye strongly opposed the YPG's presence in northern Syria. Ankara has long objected to the U.S.' support for the YPG, a group that poses a threat to Türkiye and that terrorizes local people, destroying their homes and forcing them to flee.
Under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the U.S. has provided military training and given truckloads of military support to the YPG, despite its NATO ally's security concerns. Underlining that one cannot support one terrorist group to defeat another, Türkiye conducted its own counterterrorism operations, over the course of which it has managed to remove a significant number of terrorists from the region.