Tension with the US terrifies the AKP

Erdem Gül
 
Relations with the US, which the AKP embraced with great optimism following the election of Donald Trump, have, thanks to the latest crises, overtaken all problems and become the problem whose normalisation poses the greatest challenge to the AKP. For the AKP, relations with the US have overtaken the crises with the EU, not least Germany, to constitute the biggest short-term threat. The rise to prime position by the US among the problems whose solution challenges the AKP the most has come in the wake of the visa crisis over which President Tayyip Erdoğan has harshened his tone against the US for the first time since Trump’s election. Erdoğan, targeting Trump for the first time since the latter’s election spoke of, “A typology that makes a formal assessment of the phenomenon of civilisation.” Erdoğan voiced this comment after having reeled off his reactions to the crisis that erupted over Trump making comments equating terrorism with Muslims, his bodyguards being detained in the US and the freezing of visas.
 
Spring was awaited
 
The AKP, following the coolness it had experienced in its relations with the Obama administration in its final stages, embarked on a period of optimistic expectations with Trump’s election as president. Despite the experiencing of isolated problems over a fairly protracted period, this optimism was maintained. Although the US supplied arms to the PYD-YPG and announced that it would not extradite Fethullah Gülen, there was constant talk of the expectation of a spring atmosphere being brokered in relations with the US. The first crack in this optimism became evident with the US’s decision to freeze visas and this went as far as bringing Trump within the hail of criticism for the first time. For the duration of these optimistic expectations that played down individual problems in relations with the US, a cold war in the full sense was waged against the EU, not least Germany, with harsh reactions being mounted over even the smallest of problems.
 
It has overtaken Germany
 
There is explicit talk in AKP circles of a harshening of relations with the US, as harbingered in Erdoğan’s pronouncements. AKP people started commenting at the time Erdoğan was targeting Trump that for them relations with the US had come to the fore among problems that will be the hardest to solve in the near future and solving existing problems with Germany and the EU would be more feasible. According to assessments made in the AKP, the ongoing problem with the US had overtaken all other problems and become the one whose normalisation was most difficult and risky. In the AKP’s view, the solution has become very challenging due to the coinciding of a large number of problems, each one more complex than the other. People in the AKP stress in particular that the failure for Gülen to be extradited detracted greatly from the desire to maintain relations with the US and that its efforts to broker a solution in Turkey were not as vigorous as they used to be, and this was a situation that made a solution less likely.
 
The Zarrab case
 
Within the AKP, the expansion of the pending Zarrab case to encompass Halkbank and former minister Zafer Çağlayan constitute the thorniest point in relations with the US. The detaining and prosecuting of Erdoğan’s bodyguards are considered to pose risks of a secondary magnitude. These are followed by the US’s persistence in maintaining relations with the PYD-YPG. The talk on the US side is of Turkey’s joint actions with Russia and Iran over the Syria question increasing the unpredictabilities and uncertainties between the two countries.