By Foreign Policy
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is jetting to Washington next week for an Oval Office meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to talk about the future of Syria.
If Trump plans give the Turkish president a warm welcome, Erdogan can’t expect the same from the rest of Washington. Congress is still seething over Erdogan’s invasion of northeastern Syria, which upset a tenuous peace and put at risk the United States’ strongest allies in the fight against the Islamic State, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
More than one lawmaker has called on Trump to uninvite Erdogan, and some are pushing to slap more sanctions on Turkey if it continues targeting the Kurdish forces, who Ankara views as a terrorist threat. Meanwhile, prompted by congressional concern, the administration is investigating “credible” reports that Turkey misused U.S.-supplied weapons in the Syria operation.
Erdogan almost canceled. Erdogan had threatened to call the visit off after the U.S. House of Representatives last week voted to formally recognize the Armenian genocide over a century ago. He backed off that plan after a call with Trump last night that appeared to patch things up with the White House, at least temporarily.
Top U.S. envoy heads to Ankara. Ahead of Erdogan’s visit, the U.S. special envoy to Syria James Jeffrey will travel to Turkey this week to hash out a path forward in Syria. Wondering how U.S.-Turkish relations took such a nosedive? Foreign Policy has you covered with a deep-dive into how decades of disagreement paved the way for the dismal ties we see today.
