WASHINGTON (AP) – With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan taking an increasingly tough line against the NATO membership bids of Finland and Sweden despite far less strident statements from some of his top aides, U.S. officials are trying to determine how serious the often mercurial leader is and what it might take to get him to back down.
Amid the contradictory signals from Ankara over the applications before they were submitted on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet his Turkish counterpart in New York in a new effort to clarify Ankara’s position after previous attempts appear to have only clouded the situation.
Underscoring the sensitivity of the delicate diplomacy required to deal with a potentially recalcitrant ally, the Biden administration seems to have taken to ignoring Erdogan saying he cannot allow the two nations to join NATO due to their alleged support for groups Turkey sees as security threats. Instead, the administration is focusing on remarks made in closed-door meetings by lower-ranking Turkish officials.
“It is not for us to speak for the Turkish government,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said repeatedly on Tuesday in response to multiple questions about what the U.S. understands Turkey’s position to be and whether Turkey had demanded anything from the United States in return for agreeing to Finland’s and Sweden’s memberships.
At stake for the United States and its NATO partners is an opportunity to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by strengthening and expanding the alliance – the very opposite of what President Vladimir Putin hoped to achieve in starting the war.