Ties between Washington and its strategic NATO ally have remained tense despite a personal friendship between US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan…reports Asian Lite News
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a fraught visit to Istanbul on Tuesday that included no official meetings and an agenda focused on religious freedoms that Ankara dismissed as “irrelevant.” Arab News Reports
Ties between Washington and its strategic NATO ally have remained tense despite a personal friendship between US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A group of 20 to 30 Turks shouted “Yankee go home!” as the evangelical Christian Pompeo headed in for a meeting with the Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople – the spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox world – to express his “strong position” on religious freedoms.
Earlier, Pompeo had publicly criticized Erdogan’s controversial conversion of Istanbul’s emblematic Hagia Sophia monument into a mosque in July.
The US administration and Europe need to work jointly on addressing actions led by Turkey in the Middle East over the past few months, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told French daily newspaper Le Figaro. Arab news reports
“France’s president Emmanuel Macron and I agree that Turkey’s recent actions have been very aggressive,” Pompeo said, citing Turkey’s recent support to Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Armenia as well as military moves in Libya and the Mediterranean.
“Europe and the US must work together to convince Erdogan such actions are not in the interest of his people,” Pompeo said, referring to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
Also read:Palestine knocks Pompeo’s plan to visit Israeli settlement
