Rex Tillerson’s Latest Visit to Ankara

The U.S. State Department released a statement following Mr. Tillerson’s Ankara meetings, the more important parts of which read as follows:

We reaffirm that our common agenda is a global one, which includes many critical issues ranging from the fight against terrorism, countering proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, bringing lasting peace and stability to the Middle East including in Syria and Iraq, ensuring energy security and combatting radicalism, violent extremism and Islamophobia.

The Republic of Turkey and the United States, as longstanding Allies, reaffirm their determination to jointly combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Turkey and the United States reiterate their resolve to fight against DAESH, PKK, Al Qaeda, and all other terrorist organizations and their extensions. We recognize the right to self-defense of our countries against terrorist threats directly targeting our nations.

Turkey and the United States reaffirm their commitment to the preservation of the territorial integrity and national unity of Syria. To this end, we will decisively stand against all attempts to create faits accomplis and demographic changes within Syria, and are dedicated to coordination on transition and stabilization of Syria.

Turkish officials went further, telling reporters after the meetings that the U.S. and Turkey were pursuing an arrangement wherein Syrian Kurdish PYD controlled forces leave the town of Manbij and joint Turkish-American forces replace them there. Foreign Minister Cavusoglu added that “What is important is who will govern and provide security to these areas... We will coordinate to restore stability in Manbij and other cities. We will start with Manbij. After YPG leaves there, we can take steps with the U.S. based on trust."

All of this should worry the Syrian Kurdish allies of the United States, who fought so hard to clear Manbij and other areas of “Islamic State” Jihadis. Did Rex Tillerson go to Ankara in order to throw the Syrian Kurds under the bus? It probably does not help that Mr. Tillerson eschewed normal protocol and spent more than three hours in a meeting with Turkish President Erdogan without a State Department translator, instead relying on Foreign Minister Cavusoglu to translate for him. 

Former State Department spokesman John Kirby explained to CNN, "If the meeting is not conducted in English, it is foolhardy in the extreme not to have at his side a State Department translator, who can ensure that Mr. Tillerson's points are delivered accurately and with the proper emphasis….That Mr. Tillerson eschewed this sort of support in what he knew would be a tense and critical meeting with President Erdogan smacks of either poor staff work or dangerous naïveté on his part."

The Syrian Kurds of the PYD and allied groups probably need not worry too much, however, as this kind of thing happens on most State Department and White House visits to Turkey (Pentagon officials, on the other hand, appear harder to convert during their Turkey visits). American officials like Tillerson usually appear convinced by the rhetoric of Turkey’s governing officials, issue statements that the Turks want to hear (and which the Turks then embellish upon for the media), and then go home. 

As soon as they get back to Washington, however, these U.S. officials suddenly seem to come back to reality. Perhaps they speak with people in the CIA or Pentagon or various think tanks, who remind them of facts that the Turks would rather sweep under their rugs: That Turkey itself aided and abetted the rise of ISIS, that Ankara is even now recruiting, training and deploying Jihadis to Afrin and other parts of Syria, that Mr. Erdogan in the last few years has almost single-handedly destroyed Turkey’s institutions and democratic safeguards, that Turkish officials blame the Americans for the failed coup of July 2016 and a host of other conspiracies, that Turkey’s new Islamist leaders habitually vilify and insult America, that these “allies” revel in increasingly radical Islamist rhetoric, that Turkey jails more journalists than any other country and that Turkey now buys key weapon systems from Russia rather than America. Someone in Washington will also remind Mr. Tillerson and company that under the PYD, Manbij, Afrin and other areas have been more stable, secure and Jihadi-free than anywhere else in Syria (at least until Turkey started bombing Afrin).

In short, the end result of Mr. Tillerson’s latest trip to Ankara will likely resemble the results of his previous trips there, and we will not see the United States and Turkey “lock arms” any time soon. 

David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.


The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.