Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to the US and the subsequent meeting with Joe Biden has apparently been postponed.
According to reports, during the negotiations between Ankara and Washington no common ground seems to have been found on the preconditions for the meeting and joint statements, such as support for Hamas (whose leadership the Turkish president met in Istanbul a few days ago).
In this context, the Americans seem not to have given the green light for the meeting, with Erdogan’s side leaking today through a government official that he has postponed the meeting.
It should be noted that for days there has been behind-the-scenes internal pressure on the US government to meet with Erdogan due to support for Hamas, especially since Joe Biden is currently on the campaign trail.
This development is yet another page in the thriller of Erdogan’s trip to the US as while he and Turkey for months seemed to have tried behind the scenes very hard to make it happen, in recent weeks much ink had been spilled on whether or not it had been cancelled. Most notably, a Turkish media report which five days ago reported that the trip had been cancelled.
Today, on the other hand, since this morning, international media such as Bloomberg were reporting that the trip would finally take place and that it would take place on 9 May, which seems to have been overturned.