FOREIGN POLICY/NATO/TURKEY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Five months ago, President Donald Trump hailed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a friend and said the two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies had never been closer.
But Mr. Trump’s optimistic view masked a more complicated reality: Turkey quickly has become one of the Trump administration’s most vexing relationships. Relations between the two countries, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson conceded last week, are at a ‘crisis point.’ And there appears to be no clear road map for the two countries to overcome their differences.
The Trump administration has embarked on a new campaign to try to repair ties and pull Turkey out of its deepening alliances with Russia and Iran. As part of that, senior U.S officials including Mr. Tillerson, National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, have held intensive talks with Turkish leaders in recent days as they try to persuade Mr. Erdogan to step back from his warming relations with Moscow and Tehran… The U.S. wants Turkey on its side as it steps up efforts to push Iran and its allies out of Syria. And it is worried that Russia is making progress in dividing NATO by selling advanced anti-missile defenses to Turkey.
Turkish officials declined to comment Wednesday [2-21-18], but the U.S. and Turkey agreed over the weekend to form new working groups on key issues to see if they can bridge their differences.”
-Dion Nissenbaum, “U.S. Moves to Halt Turkey’s Drift Toward Iran and Russia,” The Wall Street Journal online, Feb. 21, 2018 03:12pm