On Tuesday, President Trump will hold a meeting at the White House with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Key topics are expected to be Turkey's opposition to a Trump plan to arm Kurdish fighters for a possible offensive to capture the Islamic State capital of Raqqa, and Turkey's call for the U.S. to extradite a Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan blames for inciting a failed coup last summer. Trump has tried to maintain friendly relations with Erdogan, including calling him to congratulate him last month on a narrowly approved referendum that will greatly increase the Turkish leader's powers.
Since the coup, Turkey has arrested 47,000 people, fired 100,000 government employees suspected of following Gulen, and jailed more than 100 journalists and a dozen opposition legislators. Human rights are not expected to be on the agenda. The Kurdish YPG fighters have been America's most effective force against ISIS, but Turkey considers them terrorists allied with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Jared and Ivanka's Albanian islandUnder The Radar The deal to develop Sazan has been met with widespread opposition
-
Storm warningFeature The U.S. is headed for an intense hurricane season. Will a shrunken FEMA and NOAA be able to respond?
-
U.S. v. Skrmetti: Did the trans rights movement overreach?Feature The Supreme Court upholds a Tennessee law that bans transgender care for minors, dealing a blow to trans rights
-
Trump sues LA over immigration policiesSpeed Read He is suing over the city's sanctuary law, claiming it prevents local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities
-
Obama, Bush and Bono eulogize USAID on final daySpeed Read The US Agency for International Development, a humanitarian organization, has been gutted by the Trump administration
-
The last words and final moments of 40 presidentsThe Explainer Some are eloquent quotes worthy of the holders of the highest office in the nation, and others... aren't
-
Senate advances GOP bill that costs more, cuts moreSpeed Read The bill would make giant cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, leaving 11.8 million fewer people with health coverage
-
Canadian man dies in ICE custodySpeed Read A Canadian citizen with permanent US residency died at a federal detention center in Miami
-
GOP races to revise megabill after Senate rulingsSpeed Read A Senate parliamentarian ruled that several changes to Medicaid included in Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" were not permissible
-
Supreme Court lets states ax Planned Parenthood fundsSpeed Read The court ruled that Planned Parenthood cannot sue South Carolina over the state's effort to deny it funding
-
Trump plans Iran talks, insists nuke threat goneSpeed Read 'The war is done' and 'we destroyed the nuclear,' said President Trump
