President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made clear Türkiye is ready to collaborate with the United States following the re-election of Donald Trump to resolve regional crises like the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.
“Trump has made promises to end conflicts … We want that promise to be fulfilled and for Israel to be told to ‘stop,'” Erdoğan told reporters on a flight back from an EU summit in Hungary on Thursday.
Erdoğan, a staunch Palestine supporter, has been a virulent critic of the Netanyahu administration as Israel’s attacks have killed more than 42,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, as well as of Washington for enabling Tel Aviv. Türkiye has halted trade with Israel and applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the World Court.
“Mr. Trump cutting off the arms support provided to Israel could be a good start in order to stop the Israeli aggression in Palestinian and Lebanese lands,” Erdoğan said.
The U.S. is Israel’s main ally, providing $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, alone, according to a report from Brown University last month. U.S. military support to Israel has steadily increased since 1978, with the largest share approved under the Biden administration.
Trump’s presidency will seriously affect political and military balances in the Middle East region, Erdoğan said, adding that pursuing Biden-era policies would deepen the deadlock and spread the conflict in the region.
War in Ukraine could end easily if Trump’s administration takes a solution-based approach, Erdoğan continued, arguing that efforts of the Western countries led by the U.S. to end war in Ukraine would accelerate a solution.
He also said he invited Trump to visit Türkiye after a phone call on Wednesday in which he said Trump spoke very positively about Türkiye.
“Despite disagreements, Türkiye and the U.S. have an indisputable model partnership,” Erdoğan said.
The NATO allies had regular contact during Trump’s first presidency and achieved results, Erdoğan recalled in an apparent jab at the lack of communication with Joe Biden’s administration in the past four years.
“I don’t believe we will have such trouble with Trump,” the Turkish leader said, praising the president-elect’s election victory “despite many hardships including assassination attempts” during his campaign.
“Not many politicians could so comfortably withstand these,” Erdoğan said.
YPG problem
Erdoğan believes under Trump, Türkiye and the U.S. will get to discuss Washington’s withdrawal from northern Syria and support to the PKK/YPG terrorists in the region.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 to achieve so-called Kurdish self-rule in southeastern regions and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, as well as the United States and the European Union. The YPG is its Syrian offshoot that has occupied oil-rich Syrian territories since 2015.
Washington calls the YPG its ally under the pretext of driving out remaining Daesh terrorists, something Ankara considers as support of a threat against its national security. Turkish cross-border airstrikes have targeted the YPG in the region since 2016.
At the time, Trump showed a willingness to address Türkiye’s concerns over the YPG, promising to remove it from the Turkish border area but later failing to do so.
According to his political ally Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Trump wants to pull American troops out of northern Syria instead of leaving them as “cannon fodder” if fighting breaks out between other parties.
Erdoğan wants the issue to have a certain framework in direct phone calls with Trump.
Fighter jet sale
The Turkish president also expects progress with Trump on the long-stalled F-35 fighter jet deal.
Türkiye was part of the F-35 program before its participation was suspended because of a dispute about Ankara buying S-400 Russian air defense after its efforts to buy U.S. Patriot missiles were rebuffed.
Trump in 2019 famously said: “(Türkiye) has paid the money but you’re still not giving them the jets?”
“As our ally, the United States knows our expectations,” Erdoğan said.