The recently appointed ambassador of the United States to Turkey, Jeffrey Lane Flake, presented his letter of credentials to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday in the capital Ankara.
Speaking on the new envoy, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu last month said a sole ambassador cannot affect relations to a large extent.
“We know that the new ambassador is not very anti-Turkey,” he said, adding, however, the envoy recently adopted a negative stance toward Ankara in the U.S. Congress to earn a vote of confidence.
Ankara and Washington disagree on a number of issues that have further strained bilateral ties in recent years, from Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems to the U.S. support of the PKK terrorist group's Syrian branch, the YPG, as well as the U.S. refusal to extradite Fetullah Gülen, the leader of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), among other legal matters.
“We want to cooperate closely with the new ambassador to further U.S.-Turkey relations,” he highlighted, saying that he hoped the ambassador would have a similar understanding.
Flake's appointment was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Oct. 16 and the Senate General Assembly on Oct. 26 with the joint approval of Republican and Democrat members. The former senator was officially sworn in at the ceremony held on Dec. 7, with the participation of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
Nominated in mid-July, Flake was a key Republican ally for Biden during last year's race to the White House and endorsed the Democratic then-nominee after establishing himself as a Republican at odds with former President Donald Trump.
Flake served in both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his time in Congress, spanning nearly two decades. Flake served in the U.S. Senate for Arizona from 2013 to 2019 and in the U.S. House from 2001 to 2013.
Flake retired from the Senate at the end of his term in 2019, saying he was out of step with the Republican Party in the era of former President Donald Trump. He later wrote a book, "Conscience of a Conservative,” that was a critique of Trump.
Meanwhile, David Satterfield, the former U.S. ambassador to Turkey who has worked extensively in the Middle East, was appointed as the new special envoy for the Horn of Africa.
