WASHINGTON: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan postponed a White House meeting with President Joe Biden, a source familiar with the situation and a Turkish official said on Friday of a visit that had been tentatively planned for May 9.
A new date will soon be set, the Turkish official said, requesting anonymity. The source familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unclear what prompted the postponement.
A U.S. official noted that the meeting between the NATO allies had never been officially announced.
Later Friday, a U.S. Embassy spokesperson said the White House looks forward to hosting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan at a mutually convenient time. “But we have not been able to align our schedules,” the spokesperson said.
Representatives for the White House and the U.S. State Department had no immediate comment. Erdogan’s office also had no immediate comment on the postponement, reported earlier by Bloomberg.
The meeting would have been the first bilateral visit to Washington since 2019 when Erdogan met with then President Donald Trump, a Republican. He and Biden have met a few times at international summits and spoken by phone since the Democratic U.S. president took office in January 2021.
NETANYAHU, LIKE VILLAINS BEFORE HIM, HAS ETCHED HIS NAME IN HISTORY WITH SHAME AS BUTCHER OF GAZA,' SAYS TURKISH PRESIDENT ERDOGAN
pic.twitter.com/WvVwdlKdhy— X news (@runews) April 26, 2024
Ties between the U.S. and Turkey have been long strained by differences on a range of issues. While they have thawed since Ankara ratified Sweden’s NATO membership bid earlier this year, tensions persist over Syria and Russia and the war in Gaza.
NETANYAHU, LIKE VILLAINS BEFORE HIM, HAS ETCHED HIS NAME IN HISTORY WITH SHAME AS BUTCHER OF GAZA,' SAYS TURKISH PRESIDENT ERDOGAN
pic.twitter.com/WvVwdlKdhy— X news (@runews) April 26, 2024
Erdogan visited neighboring Iraq this week. Last weekend, he met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul, the first meeting between Erdogan and a Hamas delegation headed by Haniyeh since Israel began its military offensive in the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ October 7 attack.
In a career spanning three decades and counting, Ramananda (Ram to his friends) has been the foreign editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and the New Indian Express. He helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.
His work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and Ashahi Shimbun. But his one constant over all these years, he says, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.
He can rustle up a mean salad, his oil-less pepper chicken is to die for, and all it takes is some beer and rhythm and blues to rock his soul.
Talk to him about foreign and strategic affairs, media, South Asia, China, and of course India.
