US President Donald Trump welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House, as the Turkish leader seeks to leverage the warmer bilateral relations of recent years to convince Washington to lift sanctions and allow Ankara to purchase F-35 fighter jets.
Trump on Erdogan at the White House: “He’s my friend, I think he’ll manage to buy F-16 and F-35s”
In statements by both leaders in the Oval Office, Trump said: “We’ll discuss the F-35 fighters and Patriots and I believe we’ll reach a positive conclusion – I know he wants to get them and we’ll see.”
When asked by a Turkish journalist about lifting US sanctions on Turkey, the American president said: “Soon, if we have a good meeting right away.”
“He’s a tough man, with a strong opinion – I usually don’t like these men, but I like this one,” Trump said. “We’re going to do additional trade,” Trump stated and added: “We want specific things and so do they.”
“The war in Ukraine must end,” Trump emphasized at the outset, repeating that “if I had been president, this war would never have started.”
“Erdogan is neutral regarding the war in Ukraine, but he’s someone who could stop buying oil and natural gas from Russia. I’m very disappointed in Putin, he’s been fighting for a very long time and with all these bombings of recent weeks he hasn’t achieved anything substantial, they haven’t conquered anything. I believe the time has come to end this war.”
Trump welcomes Erdogan with F-35 pin on his lapel
One of the two pins that Donald Trump wore on his lapel while welcoming Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House said it all. The US President Donald Trump wore a pin with the American flag and one with the F-35s that Recep Tayyip Erdogan desperately wants to purchase. In the statements made to journalists by the two leaders, Trump made frequent references to the F-35s, saying they would discuss this issue.
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According to Deutsche Welle, Gaza and Syria are expected to be at the center of the meeting, which will take place in the Oval Office where the two leaders will then take questions from journalists.
Erdogan’s deals with Trump on the negotiation table
One of the top requests the Turkish President will make will be to allow Turkey to rejoin the consortium that manufactures Lockheed Martin’s stealth F-35 fighter aircraft. A second request will be for the United States to end its support for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. In both cases, Ankara knows the difficulties. Observers warn that despite the enthusiasm surrounding Erdogan’s much-desired reception, reintegration into the F-35 program is far from certain due to long-standing and bipartisan resistance from Congress. However, there is also a third factor on which Ankara places great hopes. Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara was among the speakers at the UN General Assembly in New York. He warned that Israel’s continued attacks endanger the region, but added that “Syria has transformed from a crisis-exporting country into an opportunity for peace“. The former jihadist and current Syrian president had a warm handshake with President Trump and the First Lady, a sign that Syria is entering the spotlight of developments.
