Meeting of Erdogan and Pence: Petrified Mines

Because of the Syria offensive of Turkey, the relationship of the country is tense to the United States. The Americans have repeatedly called for a ceasefire on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He refused. Now US Vice President Mike Pence has met Erdogan for talks in Ankara.

Turkish media announced the beginning of the meeting on Thursday afternoon and showed photos of the two in the presidential palace in the Turkish capital. Pence and Erdogan talked for about 90 minutes - originally only ten minutes had been scheduled. In the room were therefore initially also the Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay and the US Special Representative for the anti-IS coalition, James Jeffrey. Later, a meeting was planned in a larger round. The US delegation included Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo and the White House Security Adviser, Robert O'Brien.

Nothing was known about the concrete content of the talks - for example, whether they had approached on the issue of ceasefire. It had been expected that the US delegation would threaten Erdogan with additional economic sanctions if he did not stop the attacks on the Kurds in Syria.

At first there had been some confusion around the meeting because Erdogan said in an interview that he did not want to meet with Pence - his spokesman corrected shortly thereafter.

Erdogan wants to set up a security zone at the Syrian-Turkish border

Turkey had launched a military operation against the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria about a week ago. The YPG controls a large area there. Turkey regards it as a terrorist organization.

For the US, however, the Kurdish fighters were long allies in the fight against the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS). The Turkish operation had met with sharp international criticism, but was only made possible by a US troop withdrawal from the border area. In response, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey earlier this week. (Read an analysis here).

The goal of a ceasefire should continue to be difficult to achieve: Erdogan had made it clear shortly before the visit from the United States that a ceasefire is out of the question, as long as the goal is not reached: Turkey wants to set up a so-called security zone along the Syrian-Turkish border and drive all Kurdish militias out of it.

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