Page 17 - TURKRptJul19

Reuters’ translation. However, the Turkish president danced around his claim when a journalist asked whether he was “100% sure that Turkey wouldn’t be sanctioned”. Erdogan still says after meeting with Trump that he will buy both S-400s and F-35 fighter jets, and at the same time Trump will not sanction Turkey. Erdogan even goes further with claiming that S-400s would arrive in Turkey in July and Trump would also visit Turkey in July.
The written statements from the White House and the Turkish Presidency also fuelled concerns over the possibility that both delegations present at the meeting have totally misunderstood each other again, as was the case many times at previous meetings or phone calls between Erdogan and Trump. The White House said that Trump “expressed concern” over the S-400 deal and “encouraged Turkey to work with the United States on defence cooperation in a way that strengthens the NATO alliance”, while the Turkish presidency said Trump had voiced a desire to resolve the dispute without harming bilateral ties, Reuters reported.
“Even if Trump thinks this is all Obama's fault, that won't make the congressional sanctions go away... Trump-Erdogan discussions have taken on a farcical quality. Every time they talk the pattern is the same: Trump says something sympathetic but confused, Erdogan declares victory, and then a little while later we discover nothing has really changed,” Nicholas Danforth of German Marshall Fund told Al-Monitor.
Erdogan uses this kind of high-level events as a photo opportunity and he again succeeded in giving good poses with world leaders.
Now, he is expected to also use his visit to China as a photo opportunity to give the message that China is behind him. However, although Erdogan officials have been claiming since last year that China will help Erdogan with his economic troubles, financial inflows that could replace Erdogan’s dependency on his Western financers have not been observed yet.
Saudi Crown Prince ‘MsB’ was pictured together with Erdogan and Trump along with British PM May, the EU's Tusk and other world leaders during the family photo of the summit although Erdogan and the Western countries have been making some noise on media over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
A Turkish court on June 25 ordered the release from house arrest of a US Consulate employee being tried on terrorism charges. The move came days before US President Donald Trump is due to meet Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the G20 summit to take place in Osaka, Japan. The trial resumes on October 2. Nazmi Mete Canturk is the third US consulate worker to stand trial. Hamza Ulucay, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison on terrorism charges but was released in January, with travel restrictions, after almost two years in detention. Metin Topuz remained in custody after three sessions of a trial on espionage charges with the last hearing held on June 28.
S-400 showdown ‘could prompt US to extend Turkey sanctions beyond companies that build F-35 parts’. Washington is looking at imposing financial sanctions on Turkish companies beyond those that build parts for the F-35 fighter jet, over Ankara’s plans to buy Russian S-400 air defence systems, a top Pentagon official said on June 17 according to Reuters. Chief arms buyer Ellen Lord said at the Paris Airshow that US officials saw Turkey as an important Nato ally and urged it to drop its plans to buy the Russian military hardware so that Turkish companies could continue to build critical parts for a wide range of other US weapons systems beside the F-35 stealth fighter jet. Lord reportedly said that an inter-agency US government group was looking at potential sanctions against a wider range of Turkish firms under the US Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). “We have bifurcated the S-400 and F-35 impact from [the] impact to the rest of our defence and commercial industry,” Lord told reporters. “Everything outside of
17 TURKEY Country Report July 2019 www.intellinews.com