Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has refused to meet with US Vice President Mike Pence and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during their visit to Ankara on Thursday. "I will not meet them, they will meet their counterparts, I will only speak when Trump arrives," Erdogan told Sky News after a speech in parliament on Wednesday.
Pence and Pompeo want to campaign in Ankara for a ceasefire between Turkey and the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG) in northern Syria. Erdogan has already rejected a ceasefire as long as the Kurdish militia is present in Turkey's planned "security zone" along the Turkish border. In the speech before the parliament he rejected any mediation, since Turkey would not sit down with a "terrorist organization" at a table.
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