Amid tensions between the two, Ankara preferred Trump to remain in the White House • "Opposition must be supported for Erdogan to be defeated," Biden said before being elected
The only leader in the Middle East to have full diplomatic relations with the United States, who did not congratulate the elected US President Joe Biden is none other than Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Against the backdrop of severe tensions over the past three months between the two, Erdogan has chosen not to congratulate Biden.
Photo: Reuters
It began on August 15, when an excerpt from a closed-door meeting of Biden was published in the New York Times in December, in which he said Erdogan was an autocrat, harshly criticized his treatment of the Kurds and supported a wave of opposition in Ankara.
"We must completely change the American approach, and make it clear that we support the Turkish opposition," Biden said.
He said, "Erdogan needs to pay the price. The opposition needs to be supported so that it can be defeated. Not by a coup, but by elections."
The Turkish president responded with an unforgettable statement: "How dare you say such a thing ?! After all, we both drank tea together."
Those who were soon summoned to express their anger were the staff of the Turkish president.
"Biden's analysis is based on pure ignorance, arrogance and hypocrisy," Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin responded.
At the same time, the president of the Turkish president's spokesman, Fahrtin Elton, said that "no one can attack the will of our democracy and question the legitimacy of our president."
Elton added: "We believe that these unacceptable statements are unacceptable to the current administration."
This statement proves that despite the tensions between the Trump administration and the Erdogan administration, even in Ankara they understood that it was better for them that Trump be in the White House and not in Biden.
Trump halted recognition of Armenian genocide, after the House of Representatives and Senate approved it;
He refrained from imposing sanctions on Turkey and pointed the finger of blame at his incumbent, Barack Obama, for his alleged lack of assistance to Turkey, which led Ankara to purchase the S400 systems.
The president has refrained from imposing sanctions on the Turkish state bank Hulk Bank and Ankara in general, but on very measured measures such as supplying six F35s to Greece - in response to training of the Turkish air force in the 400S systems in the Black Sea.
Tensions between Biden and his men and Erdogan and his men did not end in August.
On October 14, Biden's campaign published a critique of Azerbaijan and Armenia over the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Apart from the two countries, the only third party that has been criticized by the campaign for the situation in the divided province is Turkey.
"The supply of Turkish weapons to Azerbaijan and the war-encouraging rhetoric are not responsible," the campaign said.
In an extraordinary sting to Erdogan, who already last night (Saturday) published his greeting to the elected president of Biden is the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), Kamal Kilicdraulo.
This is Erdogan's biggest rival of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is endangering him ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
"I look forward to strengthening our relations with Turkey and to deepening our strategic alliance," Kilić Draulo said.
"Erdogan was happy that Trump would win and not Biden," Dr. Chai Eitan Cohen Inrojek, a modern Turkish researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and Tel Aviv University, told Israel Today. "Trump played the 'good cop' in the United States. Concerning Turkey, while the rest of the US state apparatus played the 'bad cop'.
Trump did punish Turkey, but avoided sanctions against it. "
Dr. Cohen Inrojek adds that "on three key issues, Trump has chosen not to harm Turkey - the sanctions against the Hulk Bank, sanctions against Turkey for equipping S-400s and the president's failure to ratify Congress' decision to recognize Armenian genocide.
"These are at least three very significant things that can hurt Erdogan and Trump has tried to show him that he is trying to be the 'good cop'."