Biden adviser calls for coordinated transatlantic policy against Turkey’s actions
Turkey’s foreign policy in its region poses “a set of problems that require a lot of attention” at the start of the Biden administration that will require transatlantic coordination to resolve them, Michael Carpenter, managing director of Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy & Global Engagement, said on Monday.
Turkey is “acting irresponsibly and aggressively and undermining what we think are our shared interests”, Carpenter told participants at a livestream hosted by the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), a Greek non-profit research institute, Ahval reported.
“Whether it be Nagorno-Karabakh or Libya or tensions in the Aegean or the purchase of the S-400 air defence system from Russia. These are not actions of an ally,” the former senior Pentagon official said.
In recent months, Turkish armed forces have launched major cross-border offensives against Kurdish armed groups in Syria and Iraq, intervened against the UAE-backed strongman Khalifa Haftar in Libya, backed Azerbaijan in its post-Soviet territorial dispute with Armenia and confronted Greece over disputed maritime boundaries.
The objective should not be “pushing Turkey into a corner” by imposing sanctions and seeking an economic collapse or other consequences, which would further aggravate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government’s “aggressive tactics and bellicose rhetoric”, he said.
Turkey and its allies need “frank conversations to set right the bilateral and multilateral relationships” between them and NATO, Carpenter continued.
“Once again, I think the premise here has to be that the new U.S. administration can’t do it on its own,” he said, adding that neither Germany nor France could tackle the “complex, multifaceted challenge” individually as well.
Instead of unilateral threats, NATO member-states should present a “united front”, which may persuade Erdoğan “that there is room for cooperation, but there are also very negative consequences to pursuing a more aggressive policy”, he said.