By NAHAL TOOSI, Politico
The Obama administration is sending Vice President Joe Biden to make peace with Turkey.
Biden’s office on Saturday confirmed reports out of Turkey that he would visit the country on Aug. 24, roughly a month and a half after a failed coup attempt in the strategically located NATO ally.
Since the coup attempt, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched a massive crackdown, arresting or dismissing from their jobs tens of thousands of people, including soldiers, journalists and teachers.
His government and Turkish media outlets have also fanned rumors that the U.S. was behind the coup attempt. At the same time, they’ve demanded the U.S. extradite Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim spiritual leader whose supporters the Turks say carried out the attempted government overthrow.
U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama, have denounced the putsch, but they also have warned Erdogan that the rhetoric emanating from Turkey is damaging to relations. The U.S. also has said it cannot extradite Gulen without giving his case a proper legal review.
Earlier this month, Erdogan complained that the U.S. had yet to send a top official to visit Turkey as it recovers from the bloody putsch, which left around 300 people dead. (The U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, has visited.)
Biden will likely attempt to smooth the escalating tensions between Washington and Ankara during his trip. The vice president has often served as a trouble-shooting envoy, including in misunderstandings with the Iraqi government.
Although skepticism about Turkey’s reliability as an ally has been growing for many months in the Obama administration and in Congress, it remains an important partner, especially because it lets the U.S. use a military base on its soil to launch airstrikes against Islamic State jihadists.
