Can Erdoğan forge a new bromance with Trump? His future may depend on it | Paul Taylor

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

52% : Despite refusing to join western sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine, and recently asking unsuccessfully to join the Brics group of non-western emerging powers dominated by Moscow and Beijing, Turkey remains anchored in the west as a member of Nato and an eternal, if no-hope, candidate for EU membership.
47% : Ankara officially severed trade relations with Israel last year, but Mustafa Aydın, president of the International Relations Council of Turkey, told me that oil from Azerbaijan continues to flow to Israel via Turkish ports and trade with "Palestine" has since spiked by 2,400% in official Turkish statistics, suggesting business continues under a different name.
35% : As part of his effort to disengage from "forever wars" in the Middle East, Trump tried unsuccessfully in his first term to withdraw US special forces operating alongside the SDF against Islanic State in Syria.
30% : Yet Erdoğan was one of the world leaders who welcomed Trump's second election victory most enthusiastically, while Trump has described the authoritarian Turkish leader as a friend and voiced admiration for Turkey's role in helping bring about the fall of Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime in Syria, toppled by the Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in December.
30% : Erdoğan was never welcomed to the White House under Biden and ties were frosty, whereas Trump still takes his phone calls.
30% : Some Turkish commentators speculate that Erdoğan might offer to mediate between Trump and Vladimir Putin.
25% : At one point, Trump publicly threatened to destroy Turkey's economy if Erdoğan sent troops into Syria to attack US-backed Kurdish forces, which Ankara regards as a branch of the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK), its most deadly domestic foe.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.