Blinken to hold bilateral talks with Turkish foreign minister at NATO meeting in Brussels
This will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two since US President Joe Biden took office.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to hold separate meetings with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias on the sidelines of a NATO foreign ministers gathering in Brussels on March 23-24, diplomatic sources told Al-Monitor. This will mark the first face-to-face meeting between Blinken and his Turkish counterpart and the first ever high-level official in person contact of its kind between the two NATO allies.
The sources said Blinken is expected to meet Dendias first, and the meeting with Cavusoglu is due to take place on March 23. The sources said Turkey's recently acquired Russian-made S-400 will be on the agenda along with all the other knotty issues dividing the NATO allies, including the eastern Mediterranean where Turkey and Greece are butting heads over hydrocarbon rights and US support for Kurdish militants in Syria.
The State Department declined to confirm whether either meeting would be taking place.
“We refer you to the spokesperson’s statement released on Friday announcing the secretary’s trip to Belgium. We do not have any additional updates to provide at this time,” the State Department said in an email.
