Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to Washington last week hoping to get Washington to commit to taking a more assertive stance on Syria, but in the end left with very little of what he wanted.
In fact, if anyone changed their positions during the visit, it was the normally strong-headed Erdogan, who came away from his meeting with President Barack Obama in support of Washington's efforts to put together an international conference on solving the crisis in Syria, dubbed Geneva II. Erdogan had previously been dismissive of such a diplomatic effort, calling it a stall tactic by the Assad regime and its supporters, but in Washington he sang a different tune, saying he was now in favor of Geneva II, particularly since Russia -- Assad's main supporter -- and China are now expected to participate.
Veteran Turkish analyst Cengiz Candar, writing for the Al Monitor website, explains how the White House got Erdogan to change positions:
The Americans pampered Erdogan enough to twist his arm without hurting and enabled him to showcase his Washington visit to the Turkish public as a victorious diplomatic fanfare. The meeting of delegations at the White House was unprecedentedly crowded with 1+13, that is in addition to Erdogan and Obama, there were 13 others on both sides. Americans accommodated the Turkish whim for this ludicrous number clearly with prospects of possible profits.
The White House meeting was followed by a lunch where Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry took over as master of ceremonies for Erdogan by extolling him to the high heavens. The real working dinner was at the White House. It was on 1+2 format. In addition to Erdogan, there were the Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Erdogan’s confidant, Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, MIT. Obama’s team included Kerry and National Security Council Adviser Tom Donilon. Whatever was decided on Syria, it was at that dinner.
A political observer friend, commenting on the most lavish welcome ever given to a Turkish leader visiting Washington, said: “If the Americans are going so much out of their way to please Erdogan, there must be something behind it all. They must have received something important without giving anything in return.”
That was a correct diagnosis. Erdogan, with a stark reversal of his Syrian stance, boarded the train, jointly operated by the US and Russia and marked “’Destination Geneva II."
As analyst Semih Idiz, also writing in Al Monitor, points out, Ankara reversing its position on Geneva II is only part of a larger recalibration of its Syria policy. Faced with a western alliance that is extremely reluctant to intervene militarily in Syria and growing domestic concerns that the Syrian conflict will soon spill over into Turkey (if it hasn't already, as the devastating recent bombings in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli might indicate), Erdogan clearly must have come to terms with the fact that Turkey's current Syria policy was failing to pay any dividends.
The question now is, should Geneva II and the diplomacy surrounding it fail, what will Erdogan ask of Obama in return for having changed his position and coming out in support of what ended up being a losing effort?
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