Turkish opposition members and human rights defenders are urging President Donald Trump to raise the issue of Turkey's deteriorating human rights and democracy in talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.
Trump has been keen to maintain a good relationship with Erdogan.
Both leaders are proud of their electoral victories, seeing in them a repudiation of establishment elites and a vindication of their populist nationalism tactics.
Regarding "terrorists", the US and Turkey do not see eye-to-eye.
Ethnic tensions are brewing in Tabaqa after the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured the northern village and its neighbouring dam earlier this week (10 May).
The Turkish Government considers the YPG to be an integral part of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which both the US and Turkey designate a terrorist organization. The U.S., whose forces are sometimes embedded with the Kurds, has much to fear. Since a Turkish airstrike on YPG forces in late April, U.S. troops reportedly are patrolling with YPG forces to preclude another strike by the Turks.
Erdogan has also made clear he expects steps from Washington over the fate of Gulen, who denies any role in the coup but whom Turkey wants to see extradited and face trial at home.
He considered that Washington's decision to arm the YPG contradicts with U.S. strategic relations with Turkey, noting that "it is not right to see our United States ally alongside a terrorist organization". For the USA, the PKK is an insurgency that uses terrorist tactics in pursuit of its nationalist goal that does not present a threat beyond the countries that include traditional Kurdish regions, unlike ISIS operates globally, inspiring or directing terrorist attacks in numerous countries far from the Middle East.
Locals take refuge inside bunker after ceasefire violation by Pakistan continues
The district administration has rushed relief and rescue teams to the site and have established relief camps in Nowshera. Indian forces retaliated "strongly and effectively", he said, adding the authorities had closed all schools in the area.
Ahmet S. Yayla, a George Mason University professor and former Turkish prosecutor, wrote in Modern Diplomacy this week that Erdogan wants the US case against Zarrab dropped because his government was involved in the scheme to help Iran circumvent sanctions.
Speaking to journalists ahead of visit, the Turkish President said that he would discuss the extradition of Fetullah Gulen with Donald Trump on May 16.
Ties became poisoned in the last months of the Barack Obama administration by venomous disputes over United States support for Kurdish fighters in Syria and the presence in the U.S. of the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen whom Erdogan blames for last year's July 15 failed coup. The letter borrows heavily from talking points the Turkish Presidency used previously.
Erdogan and other top Turkish officials have pressed for the U.S.to reverse its strategy, however low the prospects of Trump changing his mind. Erdogan saw this as a refusal to cooperate against a criminal terrorist, helping to sour further the already hard relationship between his government and the Obama administration. The YPG is the main component of the SDF.
"In the case of Gulen, the United States needs to be clear in terms of what it can and cannot do", said Aydintasbas and Kirisci.
What then will form the basis of improved relations with our at-times hard ally Turkey?
The U.S., too, has a wish list for Turkey.
According to the Daily Sabah, Erdogan and Trump will discuss the issues surrounding Syria, especially the U.S.' decision to directly arm the Kurdish Workers' Party's (PKK) Syrian affiliate the People's Protection Units (YPG), and the extradition dossier of US -based radical cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of masterminding last year's failed coup. To no one's surprise, the Turks are furious.
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