No stranger to rocky relations with Washington, President Tayyip Erdogan holds his first meeting with President Joe Biden next week overshadowed by bitter disputes and by the new U.S. president's cool tone towards Turkey. Erdogan had to wait three months after Biden's inauguration for their first contact, an awkward phone call in April when Biden said he was recognising the 1915 massacres of Armenians in what is now Turkey as a genocide - infuriating Ankara.
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The Lawfare Podcast: The State of the U.S.-Turkey Relationship
When President Biden entered office, he inherited a bilateral relationship with Turkey that was strained to the limits by the growing independent streak in that country s foreign policy and one that had been pushed in unfamiliar directions by his predecessor s direct and often unpredictable personal relationship with Turkey s longstanding president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This past week, the Biden administration made its first major move on the U.S.-Turkey relationship by recognizing the atrocities committed against Armenians by Ottoman authorities in the early 20th century as a genocide, a move that prior presidents had avoided for fear of how Turkey might react.
Biden - AAP 5370537724001
US President Joe Biden says the 1915 massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted genocide, a historic declaration that infuriated Turkey.
The move breaks away from decades of carefully calibrated language from the White House and will likely be celebrated by the Armenian diaspora in the United States.
But it comes at a time when Ankara and Washington have deep policy disagreements over a host of issues and is set to further strain frayed ties between the two NATO allies.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey entirely rejects the US decision which he said was based solely on populism .