Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met President Donald Trump at the White House, with discussions ranging from Turkey’s role in regional security to the purchase of airliners and fighter jets, as well as the potential lifting of sanctions.

The visit had been foreshadowed in an unusual way last week, when opposition leader Özgür Özel claimed that Erdoğan had met Donald Trump Jr. to arrange the encounter. While Erdoğan and Trump clashed on several occasions during Trump’s first term, the two leaders have generally maintained an outwardly cordial relationship — Erdoğan often referring to Trump as “my friend Donald,” with Trump returning similar sentiments.

That warmth, however, comes despite Erdoğan’s sharp criticism of the Trump administration’s Gaza plan and his recent comments on Ukraine. Speaking last week, Erdoğan said:

“Recall that Mr. Trump once said, ‘I’ll put an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.’ Has that happened? No — the war is still ongoing.”

Responding to those remarks, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said:

“These people can say what they want, but at the end of the day, when they want something done, they have to come to us. President Erdoğan is coming to the White House.”

“They all want to come to the White House and speak to President Trump and want President Trump to fix it. They can say whatever they want to say, the truth of the matter is we have meetings going on today that we have leaders begging to be a part of it.”
— @SecRubio pic.twitter.com/3RcBXqhng8

Despite the rift on several issues, the meeting was largely cordial with several key issues on the table:

Upon Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 air defence system in 2019, despite repeated US warnings, Ankara was hit with sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and subsequently expelled from the F-35 fighter jet........

© Medyascope