Senator Lindsey Graham, one of President Donald Trump’s closest Congressional allies, met Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an effort to mend an alliance most recently strained by Ankara’s purchase of a Russian missile defense system. “We’re trying to get them back in the F-35 program,” Graham said in New York on Sunday. The U.S. has locked Türkiye out of a program for advanced F-35 fighter jets to punish it for buying Russian S-400 missiles that Washington says could compromise intelligence gathered by American aircraft. Erdogan met with Graham ahead of a...
Türkiye in International Media
Türkiye is ready to act on its southern border with Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan said, after warning that it could take unilateral steps if the U.S. does not establish a "safe zone" in northeast Syria this month. "Our preparations along our borders are complete," Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul on Saturday before departing to attend a U.N. General Assembly meeting. NATO allies Türkiye and the U.S. have started joint land and air patrols along part of the border strip, but Ankara says Washington is moving too slowly to establish a sufficiently large safe...
The leaders of Türkiye, Russia and Iran meeting in Ankara on Monday agreed to try to ease tensions in northwest Syria's Idlib region, but disagreements between the countries appeared to linger, especially over the threat from Islamic State. The summit of the three countries - all of whom have allies fighting in Syria's ruinous eight-year-old war - aimed to find a lasting truce in Syria. Recent attacks by Syrian government forces risk deepening regional turmoil and pushing a new wave of migrants towards Türkiye. "We are in a period when we need to take more responsibility for peace...
The leaders of Russia, Iran and Türkiye are meeting in Ankara to discuss the Syrian conflict. Topping the agenda of Monday's meeting is the volatile situation in northwestern Idlib province — the last rebel stronghold in Syria. A cease-fire that went into effect there at the end of August, following a wide four-month offensive by government forces, has been holding despite some violations that left six people dead last week. The conflict in Idlib has raised the possibility of a mass refugee flow toward Türkiye's border. Türkiye already hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees. The meeting is...
President Tayyip Erdogan said he will discuss buying U.S. Patriot missiles with President Donald Trump this month, saying his personal bond with the U.S. leader could overcome a crisis caused by Ankara buying Russian air defence systems. Türkiye's purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system in July raised the prospect of U.S. sanctions, and the State Department has said an offer to sell Raytheon Co's Patriot missile defence system to Ankara has expired. However Erdogan told Reuters he had discussed buying Patriots in a phone call with Trump two weeks ago and would follow up when...
For now at least, a coincidence of favorable data and timing would appear to vindicate Erdogan’s assault on economic orthodoxy, which holds that borrowing decreases when interest rates rise, curbing inflation as consumers spend less. Türkiye’s president believes the opposite is true, and lower rates bring price growth down. Thanks to a more stable lira, weak demand after recession, and distortions from year-on-year comparisons, Turkish inflation could soon be in single digits for the first time in over two years. And the central bank will almost certainly oblige on Thursday with a rate cut of as much...
Turkish and U.S. troops conducted their first joint ground patrol in northeastern Syria on Sunday as part of a so-called "safe zone" that Ankara has been pressing for in the volatile Kurdish-administered region. Türkiye hopes the buffer zone, which it says should be at least 30 kilometers (19 miles) deep, will keep Syrian Kurdish fighters away from its border. Türkiye considers these Kurdish militias a threat, but they've also been key U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State group. The presence of Turkish troops inside Kurdish-administered areas is a major development in the conflict...
Türkiye's president threatened Saturday to launch a unilateral offensive into northeastern Syria if plans to establish a so-called safe zone along Türkiye's border fail to meet his expectations, including a demand that Turkish soldiers control the corridor. Speaking to graduates of a military academy in Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the U.S. had up to three weeks to satisfy Turkish demands. Earlier in August, Turkish and U.S. officials agreed to set up the zone east of the Euphrates River. Ankara wants U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters, considered terrorists by Türkiye, to pull back from...
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Türkiye will ensure it is able to buy and produce fighter jets and that Russian Su-35s and Su-57s are a possible alternative to U.S. planes. He also said that he plans to meet U.S. President Donald Trump next month at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in mid-September. "If the United States maintains its current stance on the F-35s, we will take care of this," he told reporters in Ankara. "Beyond putting the Su-35 or 57 issue on the table, the issues that we are...