​Albayrak meets Trump to resolve S-400 crisis

TURKEY - In Brief 17 Apr 2019 by Atilla Yesilada

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I can anticipate that many among our audience would also like to hear about Istanbul elections, but there is nothing I can add to my analysis articulated in the last Weekly Tracker.AKP has lodged an extraordinary challenge to the election results, kicking the ball to High Election Board’s court.There is heated debate even among conservative pundits as to whether Erdogan really wants Istanbul, given the rising risks to political and economic stability. To recall, I bet Erdogan will allow HEC to decide freely, with the caveat that the margin of error in the prediction is very high. However, there is an important development, though not yet a break-through in the S-400 conflict between Turkey and US/NATO.I appears that Berat Albayrak’s audience with President Trumpmay have triggered a re-think in Ankara about defying US. Albayrak used his relationship with Jared Kushner to gain an audience with Trump, and my understanding of Ankara’s strategy is to abandon all traditional channels of diplomacy with US to focus on Albayrak-Kushner link. I can also verify through several news articles that Ankara has not yet taken sanctions threats by the Congress or White House officials seriously, believing firmly that convincing Trump on the “harmlessness” of S-400s to F-35s and the NATO interests would get rid of the controversy. It now appears that Albayrak is the wiser about the gravity of US threats, even though he claims Trump was “reasonable” about Turkey’ position vis-à-vis -400s—White House refused to comment. Let’s review the evidence of a re-think: Al Monitor writes:“Is Turkey’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 air defense system a done deal? “Yes and no,” according to a member...