How did Biden convince Erdogan? CNN wrote the background to the months-long talks
President Tayyip Erdogan’s green light for Sweden to join the military alliance at the Vilnius NATO summit is also high on the US press agenda.
CNN International published a remarkable story about the background of US President Joe Biden’s efforts to convince Turkey of Sweden’s NATO membership and the F-16 sales process. Noting that the Biden administration has been ramping up pressure on Turkey for months to get Sweden to accept NATO membership at the NATO summit and conduct diplomacy behind closed doors, the TV channel noted that F -16 are also an important agenda in the talks.
In the story, which called the Turkey deal “one of the Biden administration’s greatest diplomatic achievements,” it was claimed that the administration also made efforts to water down names, such as US Senator Bob Menendez, who opposed the sale. . of the F-16 to Türkiye. Speaking to CNN, a US official said Erdogan’s meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kiriakos Mitsotakis today as part of the NATO summit is expected to dampen voices against the sale of F-16s in USA.
Today’s meeting between Erdogan and Mitsotakis was closely followed in the US.
‘TRANSPORT DIPLOMACY WAS CARRIED OUT’
Erdogan, who met US President Biden in Lithuania yesterday, said: “Our previous meetings were like warm-up laps, but now we are starting a new process,” and Biden thanked Erdogan on Sweden. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on the other hand, claimed that it is “in the interests of the US and NATO” for Turkey to have modernized F-16 jets.
In the news, in which it was recorded that US officials had been holding talks with Turkey for a long time behind the scenes for Sweden’s membership in NATO, it was claimed that the US ambassador in Ankara, Jeff Klake, had been transferred between Turkey and the US for months. The sources reported that Flake made several contacts in Washington to introduce former presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın, now MIT director, to members of the US Congress and send a message to Turkey about Sweden’s membership.
Erdogan held bilateral meetings in Lithuania today with names like Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
WARNING LETTER TO Türkiye
In addition to Flake, it was claimed that the US ambassador in Athens, George Tsunis, was also holding talks with members of the US Congress on the sale of fighter jets to Turkey and Greece. CNN also wrote that 28 US senators sent a letter to Turkey stating that they would not approve the sale of the F-16 unless Sweden became a NATO member.
A senior name in the US State Department said Blinken, the Foreign Minister, also discussed the issue many times with members of the US Congress and called his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan three times. before the NATO summit.
Biden said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria last week that Sweden is making efforts to join NATO, but no deal has been reached yet.