Fiasco in Ankara: Turkish-US friction on Syria back to square one
US national security adviser John Bolton was snubbed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan because of the Trump administration's demands that Kurds not be harmed after the United States withdraws most of its troops.
US national security adviser John Bolton’s visit to Ankara was supposed to be a turning point in Syria’s foreseeable future and for Turkish-US relations.
It was — but not in the sense that was expected. No progress was made in relations between the two NATO allies — Turkey and the United States — which have become increasingly problematic regarding the Syrian theater. On the contrary, Bolton's visit could be deemed a diplomatic disaster.
Summarizing the result of the high-level US delegation's visit, Reuters — alluding to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's refusal to meet with the delegation, said, “Turkey's Erdogan rebukes Trump's top security adviser over Kurds in Syria."
That could be the mildest way of interpreting what happened in Ankara when Erdogan apparently humiliated Bolton. In a way, Bolton and the accompanying delegation — which included US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and James Jeffrey, the US special representative for Syria and special envoy for the anti-Islamic State coalition, a title he recently inherited from the former envoy, Brett McGurk — made up the highest level of American policymaking that could be dispatched to any capital.
