ANKARA – Despite its fury with the United States for calling the Ottoman massacre of Armenians a genocide, Turkey is for now avoiding a showdown that could hurt its fragile economy and scupper hopes of better ties with U.S.-allied Arab states.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan angrily condemned Joe Biden’s characterization of the killings a century ago, saying the U.S. president should “look in the mirror” and examine the fate of Native Americans wiped out by settlers who founded his country.
But the usually combative Turkish leader, who has often used foreign disputes to rally domestic support, is more focused on reviving a battered economy, something that is key to his long-term re-election prospects.
In a largely restrained response, he has taken no concrete retaliatory steps and has addressed the issue just once since Biden’s historic declaration on Saturday.
In the same televised speech in which he lashed out at Biden’s “baseless, unjust and untrue remarks,” Erdogan stressed that the two leaders could forge a new start when they meet in June for the first time since Biden took office.
That softer tone reflects the delicate path Erdogan is treading between fury over the genocide designation and fear of the damage that could be done by a deeper rift with Washington.
It is also consistent with Turkey’s broader goal since late last year of mending frayed ties with Western and Arab states, after years of military interventions and assertive foreign policy that increased Ankara’s hard power but left it largely isolated in the east Mediterranean and Middle East.
Relations with Washington were already strained by Turkey’s purchase of Russian air defenses and U.S. support for Syrian Kurdish fighters Ankara says are inextricably linked to militants waging a decades old insurgency in Turkey.
In contrast to his predecessor Donald Trump, who spoke to Erdogan regularly and was largely sympathetic to the Turkish president, Biden has kept his distance and his administration has criticized Ankara’s human rights record.
Three months after taking office, Biden had not spoken to Erdogan until last Friday, when he called the Turkish leader to give him advance notice of his genocide declaration.
“Certainly it was not something pleasant,” a senior Turkish official with knowledge of the call said. “Doing this in his first year was a stance that put relations in jeopardy.”
At the same time, the official said the phone call “laid the foundations” for the two NATO partners to cooperate in future. “Developments will show how relations will evolve, but it still appears that it can be overcome.”
Two other officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Turkey would seek to avoid escalating the dispute with Washington — at least for now. Erdogan’s spokesman and national security adviser, Ibrahim Kalin, said the day after…
Read More: Vexed but vulnerable, Erdogan avoids escalating genocide dispute with Biden