Erdogan to hold talks with Biden in May

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with US counterpart Joe Biden at the White House on May 9, a Turkish official told AFP yesterday.

It would be the first White House meeting between the two leaders, who last met on the margins of the Nato summit in Lithuania in July.

The Nato allies are seeking to rebuild ties strained over disputes including Turkey’s delayed approval of Sweden’s accession to the alliance.

“I think this is quite a significant trip. Erdogan has now been in charge of running Turkey for 21 years and Biden is the first president until this moment to not have invited him to the White House,” Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Program at The Washington Institute, told AFP.

“It’s a pretty big deal that Erdogan has finally secured an invitation just before the end of Biden’s term,” he said.

Turkey’s resistance to Sweden’s Nato bid after Russia’s war on Ukraine in 2022 was one of the sticking issues in ties. The move reflected Erdogan’s more nuanced stance toward Russia.

Turkey has profited from maintaining trade with Moscow while at the same time supplying Ukraine with drones and other essential arms.

Erdogan has also been one of the few Western leaders to hold regular meetings and phone conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was initially expected to visit Turkey in February.

Ankara refused to join the West in imposing sanctions on Russia as concerns were raised over Turkey becoming a transit route for goods supporting Moscow’s wartime defence industry.

“We have no intention to harm legitimate trade between Turkey and Russia but we are very serious when it comes to illegal trade,” a Western diplomat told AFP.

The Biden administration in January approved $23 billion in F-16 warplanes for Turkey swiftly after it ratified Sweden’s stalled Nato membership bid.

Turkey will get 40 new F-16s and upgrades to 79 jets in its existing fleet.

Washington did not green light the transaction until Turkey’s instruments of ratification of Sweden’s membership had arrived in Washington, a US official said then, highlighting the highly sensitive nature of the negotiations.