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US-TURKEY-POLITICS
US will do ‘very best’ to keep Turkey in NATO: Trump aide
WASHINGTON, Nov 11, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The United States will do its “very
best” to keep Turkey in NATO, the US national security advisor said Sunday
ahead of a White House visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan’s scheduled meeting Wednesday with President Donald Trump comes
amid fraying relations between the two allies, aggravated by its recent
offensive against US Kurdish allies in Syria.
Robert O’Brien, Trump’s new national security advisor, suggested in an
interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” that keeping Turkey in NATO was of
overriding importance to the administration.
“They play a very important role. So losing Turkey as an ally is not
something that is good for Europe or for the United States. And we’re going
to work on making sure that we can do our very best to keep them as a NATO
member,” he said.
The US House of Representatives, however, voted on Tuesday to sanction
Ankara for its assault last month on Kurdish-controlled territory in northern
Syria.
The same day, it approved a resolution recognizing the “Armenian genocide,”
in a symbolic but unprecedented rebuke to Turkey.
The House had previously passed a resolution warning Turkey against going
through with a purchase of Russian S-400 air and missile defense system,
which Ankara has defiantly ignored.
Asked whether Trump would veto the sanctions against Turkey, O”Brien said,
“We have to see what happens.”
“If Turkey won’t get rid of the 400, Turkey will feel the impact of those
sanctions,” O’Brien said.
“There is no place in NATO for the S-400 and for Russian purchases, and
that’s a message that the president will deliver to him very clearly when he
is here in Washington.”
BSS/AFP/ARS/1716 hrs