Erdogan to Meet Pence After Intentions Were Lost in Translation
Erdogan to Meet Pence After Intentions Were Lost in Translation
(Bloomberg) -- Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he’ll meet with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, clarifying a news report suggesting he wouldn’t receive a delegation visiting the country.
The Turkish president was seen telling Sky News in a video that he “will only talk to” President Donald Trump when he visits Turkey. But Erdogan told reporters he does plan to meet with Pence and Pompeo, and Fahrettin Altun, the Turkish presidency’s communications director, confirmed that in a tweet.
The confusion led to speculation that Erdogan intended to snub Pence as the NATO allies face off over Turkey’s military operation against U.S.-backed Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria.
On Monday, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on three senior Turkish officials and increased steel tariffs on Turkey, a milder punishment than expected. U.S. lawmakers in both parties are pushing for stricter measures.
Pompeo said Wednesday that Trump is sending him and Pence because he “felt it was important that we do this at the most senior levels of the United States government to speak to him face-to-face.”
The message, he said in an interview on Fox Business Network, is that “he needs to stop the incursion into Syria.” He said that Erdogan had assured Trump on a phone call over the weekend that Turkish troops wouldn’t move into Kobani, which Pompeo described as a big city with a “multiethnic civilian population.”
Trump told reporters Wednesday that he wasn’t concerned that Russia is moving into the void created by the U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria.
“Syria may have some help with Russia and that’s fine,” Trump said. “It’s a lot of sand.”
Trump’s moves have brought bipartisan criticism in Congress. Republican Representative John Shimkus of Illinois, who graduated from West Point and has consistently backed the president, called the moves “despicable” and said the U.S. has “stabbed our allies in the back.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Cagan Koc in Istanbul at ckoc2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, ;Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert, Bill Faries
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