Presidential Spokesperson Ibrahim Kalın discussed regional developments and Turkey-U.S. relations with his American counterpart Jake Sullivan in a phone call on Friday.
According to a statement, the two officials touched on bilateral political and economic ties, enhancing defense cooperation, and regional and global developments.
They also discussed the political situation and humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, Syria’s territorial integrity and counterterrorism efforts, as well as the political process and elections in Libya, establishing permanent peace in Nagorno-Karabakh and concerns about developments in eastern Ukraine, as Russia continues to build troops on the border.
Ankara has long objected to U.S. support for the PKK terrorist group's Syrian wing, the YPG, a group that poses a threat to Turkey and terrorizes local people, destroying their homes and forcing them to flee. Under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the U.S. has provided military training and given truckloads of military support to the YPG, despite its NATO ally's security concerns. Underlining that a terrorist group cannot be supported to defeat another, Turkey conducted its own counterterrorism operations, through which it has managed to remove a significant number of terrorists from the region.
Kalın and Sullivan also talked about the details of the strategic mechanism agreed upon by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and U.S. Counterpart Joe Biden at the G-20 summit in Rome.
The two leaders had expressed their joint desire to strengthen bilateral relations that have been strained as of late, agreeing to establish a joint mechanism in this direction.
The U.S. recently proposed to establish a joint mechanism to deconstruct the problems with Turkey. The diplomatic traffic between the two countries is expected to increase once the Biden administration and Turkey decide on which officials will participate in the mechanism.
The U.S. administration will first determine its representatives for the negotiations, after which Turkey will decide who will participate in the mechanism from Ankara at the level of ministries and institutions.
