The outcome of Tuesday’s US presidential election is unlikely to have much of an impact on the tepid ties between Washington and Ankara, although personal chemistry might help to improve relations, experts say.
Long gone is the earlier closeness when the United States and Turkey saw one another as indispensable allies.
Following a recent extended period of soul-searching and crises, the two NATO allies have settled into an uneasy if formulaic alliance where they agree to disagree on many issues while maintaining an open dialogue.
“Today, it looks like both have decided to agree on some issues, disagree on others and look for areas of cooperation,” Soner Çağaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told Agence France-Presse.
Areas of collaboration could include Africa, “where Turkey has built influence, and Muslim Eurasia, where Turkey has historic influence,” he said.
But many issues have soured ties. Among them, in 2019 Washington removed Ankara from its F-35 fighter jet program in retaliation for Turkey’s decision to acquire an advanced Russian missile defense system.
Turkey has also long nursed a grudge over Washington’s alliance with a Kurdish militia group in its battle against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant militants in Syria.
Ankara’s binary foreign policy choices have infuriated Washington, notably its ties with Russia and China and its refusal to join Western sanctions against Moscow.
A bridge too far?
In a Brookings Institution commentary, Nonresident Senior Fellow Rich Outzen said US-Turkish ties have always had their difficulties, but now there was a sense that things were too complicated to resolve.
“A view has gained currency in Washington centered on the premise that US-Turkish tensions may not be worth solving,” he wrote.
“According to this view, Washington has little to gain from addressing Turkish concerns, Ankara can’t or won’t make transactions in good faith, or has adopted positions so irreconcilable with US and Western interests that there is no point in trying.”
The reluctance of outgoing US President Joe Biden to talk to his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has not helped.
Biden fell out of favor with Erdoğan when he called him “an autocrat” in a 2020 New York Times interview before Biden was elected president.
While the two leaders have spoken many times at international summits or by telephone, Biden has never visited Turkey nor hosted Erdoğan at the White House. A White House visit tentatively scheduled for May was postponed.
Tensions eased in January when Ankara lifted its veto of Sweden’s bid to join NATO and Washington approved the sale of F-16 warplanes to Turkey. But that momentum has stalled, and the gap between Erdoğan and Biden has widened over Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war.
Turkish officials decline to say who they would prefer to win the upcoming US presidential election, but some pundits suggest Donald Trump, who was in office from 2016-2020, could be preferred to his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris, given the Republican candidate’s personal rapport with Erdoğan.
‘No positive memories’
From a broader perspective, some believe it would be “more beneficial” for Turkey if the Democrats remained in power in the United States, said foreign policy analyst Serkan Demirtaş.
“Proponents of a Kamala Harris-led administration argue that the Trump era did not leave any positive memories in Turkish-American relations,” he told AFP.
“The deep crises and Trump’s attacks targeting the Turkish economy left Ankara in a very difficult situation.”
In 2018 the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Turkey’s justice and interior ministers over the detention of a US pastor, causing the Turkish lira to plummet to historic lows. Trump’s backing of Israel could also spell trouble as the Middle East teeters on the brink of all-out conflict.
“A possible Trump win is considered risky for Ankara amid the growing risk of an Israel-Iran conflict,” Demirtaş said.
In an interview published on Sunday in the Hürriyet daily, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the outcome of the US election could aggravate regional tensions. “Depending on the US election result, [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s expansionist strategy in the region may increase,” he said, apparently alluding to a Trump win.
When Trump was in office, he cultivated a personal relationship with Erdoğan, who visited the White House in 2017 and 2019. Trump agreed to visit Turkey in 2018, but never made the trip.
Although “presidential chemistry” — or the lack of it — would likely impact future ties, it was unlikely to change the modalities of the relationship,” Çağaptay said.
© Agence France-Presse