A reporter's query exposes US double-standards on Türkiye

The fact that national interests are above any ethical or legal standard in the US’s foreign policy could not have been expressed more clearly than US State Department spokesperson Ned Price did during his latest presser with Washington D.C.-based journalists. 

When asked whether there is any ‘standard’ in Washington’s application of certain provisions on the use of US-provided weapons and military assets to allies, Price responded by stating straight out that “the standard we use is what is in America's national interest”.

Not only was this a crude acknowledgement of the supremacy of US national interests over any principle and ethical standard in Washington’s foreign policy, but also sheer irony coming from a country that has been lecturing and pressuring other countries for decades on supposedly ethical grounds such as human rights, the rule of law and democracy and so on. 

Such a statement would not have come as a surprise to anyone had it been uttered by an administration like the one led by Donald Trump, which did not bother to conceal its unilateral and value-free nature and orientation in foreign policy, both in discourse and practice. However, the statement came from the Biden administration, which had gone the extra mile to reassure its allies that it would be the exact opposite of its predecessor in foreign policy. 

In a move to showcase its ‘responsible’ and ‘value-based’ nature beyond the pure pursuit of national interests, the Biden administration even convened the so-called ‘Democracy Summit’ by divvying up the world into two categories: ‘democracies’ and ‘autocracies’, in the greater context of 'democracy promotion'. Price’s statement is nothing but a negation of everything that the Biden administration purportedly stood for so far.

Apart from spelling out the moral bankruptcy of the Biden administration, Price’s statement has direct implications for Türkiye and its bilateral relations with the US, as the context of the statement was the deployment of US-provided armoured vehicles by Greece on the Aegean islands that are of non-military status as per relevant international treaties. 

Price made it clear that Athens had been threatening Türkiye’s security by arming the demilitarised Aegean islands not only based on its own reckless drive and whims but also with the blessings of Washington. Washington is not only condoning Athens’ violation of international treaties but also encouraging it to threaten Türkiye. 

Thus, it becomes clear that in recent years, Washington has been complicit in the uptick of Athens’ hostile actions against Ankara in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. Regardless of the existence of various outstanding disputes between Türkiye and Greece, the peace and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean were maintained to a great extent by Washington’s balanced approach toward both allies for decades. 

Now for some reason, Washington is risking undermining the stability and strategic balance in the south-eastern flank of NATO by pitting one ally against another. It is impossible that Washington is not aware of the dire implications of this reckless and extremely irresponsible policy.

Although this reckless policy could be attributed to the merely ‘circumstantial’ but highly pro-Greek composition in Washington – a Congress heavily influenced by the Greek lobby and “an honorary Greek President Bidenopoulos” in the Oval Office – some continuities since the Trump administration suggests otherwise. 

The fact that there has been a cross-administration continuity in Washington’s provocative and hostile approach towards Ankara by steadily bolstering Athens in the form of upgrading Souda Bay in Crete and establishing a substantial base in Dedeagac (Alexandroupolis) at Türkiye’s doorsteps while at the same time depriving Ankara of crucial security assets such as F-35s points to a rather strategic shift in Washington’s approach towards Ankara than accidental policy choices of respective administrations.

For almost a decade now, Turkish-American relations have been going through extreme turbulence and a lot of soul-searching was performed by experts and policy-makers in both Ankara and Washington in the meantime to understand the underlying reasons and if possible, to find ways to get out of the turbulence. 

The discussions mainly focused on the peculiarities of specific issues between Ankara and Washington, such as the latter’s support for the PKK's Syrian offshoot YPG in northern Syria, the former’s purchase of S-400 and its subsequent removal from the F-35 programme, and Washington’s resistance to extradite FETO ringleader Fetullah Gulen and so on. 

Under the latest moves and statements by the Biden administration and in the greater scheme of things, the manifold issues between Ankara and Washington turn out to be mere symptoms of one structural and fundamental issue – the latter paying lip service to the former's security concerns but working against it in deed.