Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu signaled today that a meeting planned for March 19 with outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss differences in Syria may be put off as Ankara scrambles to determine what impact the appointment of CIA Director Mike Pompeo as his successor will have on the two countries' increasingly shaky alliance.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, Turkey’s top diplomat said, “The meeting … could be delayed until after Tillerson’s departure. We worked with Tillerson at a point in which our ties came to a critical stage. We continued our communication even in most difficult times. This is, of course, the decision of the [United States] and we want to work with the incoming foreign minister based on the understanding of mutual respect.”

Turkey will not have detected much respect in a tweet Pompeo posted July 16, 2016, a day after the failed coup against Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unfolded. In the since-deleted message, Pompeo likened Turkey to Iran, labeling both Islamist dictatorships. He was a congressman then.

Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim suggested Ankara was unperturbed, telling reporters ahead of an official trip to Azerbaijan, “It is not very important to us what the new secretary thinks about Turkey.”