WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel Sunday to Turkiye to discuss support after a massive earthquake, his first trip to the NATO ally which has had turbulent relations with Washington.
Blinken will visit Incirlik air base, through which the United States has shipped aid, and then hold talks in the capital Ankara on “continued US support,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday.
The top US diplomat will also take part in the Munich Security Conference, where the Ukraine war and tensions with China will take center-stage, and will visit Turkiye’s historic rival Greece, a fellow NATO ally.
The United States has flown in some 200 rescuers and contributed an initial $85 million in relief for Turkiye, deploying Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters to bring supplies to worst-hit areas.
The visit, which was being planned before the February 6 earthquake that has killed nearly 40,000 people in the country and neighboring Syria, will be the first by Blinken to Turkiye after more than two years in office.
President Joe Biden was elected after promising to take a greater distance from his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom Biden has previously branded an autocrat.
But the Biden administration has since viewed Turkiye as helpful for a mediatory role between Russia and Ukraine, including in a deal to ship grain through the Black Sea to alleviate world shortages.
The Biden administration has voiced support for Turkiye’s request to buy F-16 fighter-jets but the sale is being blocked in Congress due to concerns over Turkiye’s human rights record and threats to Greece.
The United States has been seeking ways to encourage Erdogan to lift his objections to NATO membership by Sweden and Finland, which have shed earlier neutrality since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Turkiye has been the key holdout, with Erdogan pressing Sweden to crack down on Kurdish militants seen by Ankara as terrorists.
After signs of progress, Erdogan renewed objections to Sweden after a protest outside Turkiye’s embassy at Stockholm at which a far-right activist torched Islam’s holy book the Qur'an.
The United States in recent years has also been angered by Turkiye’s purchase of an advanced air defense system from Moscow, saying it could help NATO’s primary adversary hone in on Western fighter-jets.
Blinken is expected to discuss tensions with Turkiye when he travels on Monday to Athens, although the temperature has cooled since the earthquake as Greece provides assistance to its neighbor.
Blinken will start his trip Thursday in Frankfurt and then head to the Munich Security Conference, the annual gathering of leaders that is taking place a week before the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In Munich, Blinken will join Vice President Kamala Harris, who is part of a slew of US officials visiting Europe around the anniversary, with Biden due in Poland next week.
Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi is also expected in Munich, offering a potential chance for a meeting with Blinken, although US officials said nothing was decided.
Blinken had been due to travel earlier this month to Beijing in the first trip by a top US diplomat in more than four years, seeking to prevent tensions between the world’s two largest economies from spiraling out of control.
But he abruptly canceled the trip after the United States said that a Chinese surveillance balloon, later shot down, was spotted over the US mainland.
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Blinken to pledge quake support on first Turkiye visit
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Blinken to pledge quake support on first Turkiye visit
- The visit will be the first by Blinken to Turkiye after more than two years in office
- Biden was elected after promising to take a greater distance from Turkish counterpart Erdogan, whom Biden has previously branded an autocrat
Syria moves military reinforcements east of Aleppo after telling Kurds to withdraw
ALEPPO: Syria’s army was moving reinforcements east of Aleppo city on Wednesday, a day after it told Kurdish forces to withdraw from the area following deadly clashes last week.
The deployment comes as Syria’s Islamist-led government seeks to extend its authority across the country, but progress has stalled on integrating the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and forces into the central government under a deal reached in March.
The United States, which for years has supported Kurdish fighters but also backs Syria’s new authorities, urged all parties to “avoid actions that could further escalate tensions” in a statement by the US military’s Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper.
On Tuesday, Syrian state television published an army statement with a map declaring a large area east of Aleppo city a “closed military zone” and said “all armed groups in this area must withdraw to east of the Euphrates” River.
The area, controlled by Kurdish forces, extends from near Deir Hafer, around 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Aleppo, to the Euphrates about 30 kilometers further east, as well as toward the south.
State news agency SANA published images on Wednesday showing military reinforcements en route from the coastal province of Latakia, while a military source on the ground, requesting anonymity, said reinforcements were arriving from both Latakia and the Damascus region.
Both sides reported limited skirmishes overnight.
An AFP correspondent on the outskirts of Deir Hafer reported hearing intermittent artillery shelling on Wednesday, which the military source said was due to government targeting of positions belonging to the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
’Declaration of war’
The SDF controls swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which it captured during Syria’s civil war and the fight against the Daesh group.
On Monday, Syria accused the SDF of sending reinforcements to Deir Hafer and said it would send its own personnel there in response.
Kurdish forces on Tuesday denied any build-up of their personnel and accused the government of attacking the town, while state television said SDF sniper fire there killed one person.
Cooper urged “a durable diplomatic resolution through dialogue.”
Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration, said that government forces were “preparing themselves for another attack.”
“The real intention is a full-scale attack” against Kurdish-held areas, she told an online press conference, accusing the government of having made a “declaration of war” and breaking the March agreement on integrating Kurdish forces.
Syria’s government took full control of Aleppo city over the weekend after capturing its Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods and evacuating fighters there to Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeast.
Both sides traded blame over who started the violence last week that killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands.
PKK, Turkiye
On Tuesday in Qamishli, the main Kurdish city in the country’s northeast, thousands of people demonstrated against the Aleppo violence, with some burning pictures of Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, an AFP correspondent said, while shops were shut in a general strike.
Some protesters carried Kurdish flags and banners in support of the SDF.
“Leave, Jolani!” they shouted, referring to President Sharaa by his former nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani.
“This government has not honored its commitments toward any Syrians,” said cafe owner Joudi Ali.
Other protesters burned portraits of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, whose country has lauded the Syrian government’s Aleppo operation “against terrorist organizations.”
Turkiye has long been hostile to the SDF, seeing it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a major threat along its southern border.
Last year, the PKK announced an end to its long-running armed struggle against the Turkish state and began destroying its weapons, but Ankara has insisted that the move include armed Kurdish groups in Syria.
On Tuesday, the PKK called the “attack on the Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo” an attempt to sabotage peace efforts between it and Ankara.
A day earlier, Ankara’s ruling party levelled the same accusation against Kurdish fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 45 civilians and 60 soldiers and fighters from both sides killed in the Aleppo violence.
Aleppo civil defense official Faysal Mohammad said Tuesday that 50 bodies had been recovered from the Kurdish-majority neighborhoods after the fighting.
The deployment comes as Syria’s Islamist-led government seeks to extend its authority across the country, but progress has stalled on integrating the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and forces into the central government under a deal reached in March.
The United States, which for years has supported Kurdish fighters but also backs Syria’s new authorities, urged all parties to “avoid actions that could further escalate tensions” in a statement by the US military’s Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper.
On Tuesday, Syrian state television published an army statement with a map declaring a large area east of Aleppo city a “closed military zone” and said “all armed groups in this area must withdraw to east of the Euphrates” River.
The area, controlled by Kurdish forces, extends from near Deir Hafer, around 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Aleppo, to the Euphrates about 30 kilometers further east, as well as toward the south.
State news agency SANA published images on Wednesday showing military reinforcements en route from the coastal province of Latakia, while a military source on the ground, requesting anonymity, said reinforcements were arriving from both Latakia and the Damascus region.
Both sides reported limited skirmishes overnight.
An AFP correspondent on the outskirts of Deir Hafer reported hearing intermittent artillery shelling on Wednesday, which the military source said was due to government targeting of positions belonging to the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
’Declaration of war’
The SDF controls swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which it captured during Syria’s civil war and the fight against the Daesh group.
On Monday, Syria accused the SDF of sending reinforcements to Deir Hafer and said it would send its own personnel there in response.
Kurdish forces on Tuesday denied any build-up of their personnel and accused the government of attacking the town, while state television said SDF sniper fire there killed one person.
Cooper urged “a durable diplomatic resolution through dialogue.”
Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration, said that government forces were “preparing themselves for another attack.”
“The real intention is a full-scale attack” against Kurdish-held areas, she told an online press conference, accusing the government of having made a “declaration of war” and breaking the March agreement on integrating Kurdish forces.
Syria’s government took full control of Aleppo city over the weekend after capturing its Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods and evacuating fighters there to Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeast.
Both sides traded blame over who started the violence last week that killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands.
PKK, Turkiye
On Tuesday in Qamishli, the main Kurdish city in the country’s northeast, thousands of people demonstrated against the Aleppo violence, with some burning pictures of Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, an AFP correspondent said, while shops were shut in a general strike.
Some protesters carried Kurdish flags and banners in support of the SDF.
“Leave, Jolani!” they shouted, referring to President Sharaa by his former nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani.
“This government has not honored its commitments toward any Syrians,” said cafe owner Joudi Ali.
Other protesters burned portraits of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, whose country has lauded the Syrian government’s Aleppo operation “against terrorist organizations.”
Turkiye has long been hostile to the SDF, seeing it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a major threat along its southern border.
Last year, the PKK announced an end to its long-running armed struggle against the Turkish state and began destroying its weapons, but Ankara has insisted that the move include armed Kurdish groups in Syria.
On Tuesday, the PKK called the “attack on the Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo” an attempt to sabotage peace efforts between it and Ankara.
A day earlier, Ankara’s ruling party levelled the same accusation against Kurdish fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 45 civilians and 60 soldiers and fighters from both sides killed in the Aleppo violence.
Aleppo civil defense official Faysal Mohammad said Tuesday that 50 bodies had been recovered from the Kurdish-majority neighborhoods after the fighting.
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