Turkey's Erdoğan to meet Biden at G20 summit: State broadcaster

Duvar English - Reuters 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden on the margins of the G20 summit in Rome, state broadcaster TRT Haber said on Sept 28.  

The summit is scheduled for Oct. 30-31.

The announcement came as Erdoğan strongly criticized Biden for not meeting with him last week in New York during a visit to the United Nations General Assembly. 

Before leaving New York, Erdoğan said that relations between Ankara and Washington are not healthy, adding that the two countries need to "sort out" issues over Ankara's purchase of the Russian S-4400 defense system. 

The two countries should work together as friends but "the current direction does not bode well," Erdoğan said, adding he and Biden had not "started off right." 

Since taking office, Biden has made a deliberate show of keeping Erdoğan at arm’s length. Although Turkey is a NATO ally, Biden called Erdoğan for the first time on April 23 to give him advance warning that he would be using the term “genocide” in the White House’s annual message to mark the April 24 anniversary of the mass slaughter of the Armenians in 1915.

The pair did eventually meet on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels in June, and the Biden administration has toned down its earlier critiques of Erdoğan.

Ties between the U.S. and Turkey have been frayed for several years. They deteriorated further two years ago when Ankara bought a Russian missile defense system. The purchase led to Turkey being kicked off the U.S.-led F-35 stealth fighter aircraft project and to U.S. sanctions against leading Turkish defense industry officials.

Erdoğan is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 29.