US Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul in a bid to ease strains over the Syria crisis and persuade Turkey to step up its support for the coalition against Islamic State (IS) jihadists. The trip to Istanbul by Biden, the highest ranking US official to visit Turkey since Erdogan was elected president after over a decade as prime minister, comes amid unusual tensions in the traditionally strong relationship between the two Nato allies.
The pair did not announce any breakthrough after some four hours of talks at an Ottoman palace in Istanbul but Biden insisted that the relationship between the two sides was "as strong as ever it has been". Washington is frustrated by the relatively limited role played by Turkey in the fight against IS fighters who have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria right up to the Turkish border.
Turkey in turn is upset that its contribution in hosting 1.6 million refugees from the Syrian conflict has gone relatively unrecognised and is wary of supporting the Kurdish fighters battling IS. "On Syria we discussed the full range of issues and the options available to deal with those issues," Biden said after the talks. He said this included "strengthening the Syrian opposition" and seeing a "transition" from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Biden personally stung Erdogan last month by suggesting his policies in supporting Islamist rebel forces in Syria had helped encourage the rise of the IS militant group, a slight that prompted Erdogan to warn his relationship with the US number two could be "history". But the straight-talking Biden said that openness was a key part of the US-Turkey relationship. "We have always had direct and frank discussions on every issue, that is what friends do," he said.
Erdogan also praised bilateral relations. "We want to continue our co-operation with the United States by strengthening it." So far, Turkey's sole contribution to the anti-IS coalition has been allowing a contingent of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters to transit Turkish soil to fight IS militants for control of the Syrian border town of Kobane.
Ankara has also so far refused to allow US forces to stage bombing raids from the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, forcing them to make far longer sorties from the Gulf. Turkey has set several conditions for playing a greater role in the coalition. It wants a clear co-ordinated strategy to overthrow Assad, a major training and equipping programme for the anti-regime Free Syrian Army (FSA), and a security zone, backed by a no-fly area, to be set up in northern Syria along the Turkish border.
A senior US administration official told reporters ahead of the talks that both Turkey and the United States were in agreement on the need to do more to combat IS jihadists in both Iraq and Syria. But the official conceded that while Washington was aiming for a transition in Syria that did not include Assad, its "highest priority" was to defeat IS. This puts United States at odds with Turkey, which wants ousting Assad to be given the same strategic importance as defeating IS.
But the official indicated that one of Turkey's key demands - the creation of a security zone inside Syria - could be created by the FSA if it took control of the area. "You can imagine a scenario in which you have a more robust opposition on the ground that was more capable of clearing and holding terrain," the official said, emphasising it was different from having the international community declare a safe zone. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday however said the US-led operation against IS jihadists in Syria could be a guise for trying to "surreptitiously" topple the Assad regime.
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