Both Turkey’s foreign minister and defense minister have canceled plans to attend Wednesday’s Counter-Islamic State summit in Washington, according to Turkish press reports.
Asked about the reports, a Pentagon spokesman could not confirm them and would say only, “We expect Turkey to be represented tomorrow [Wednesday].”
Other officials said they were not aware of whom Turkey was sending, but “would not be surprised” if the country’s deputy foreign and defense ministers attended instead of senior representatives.
“They have a lot to attend to at home,” one official said.
#BREAKING Turkish FM Çavuşoğlu and Defence Minister Fikri Işık won’t attend anti-ISIL ministerial meeting in Washington
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) July 19, 2016
The word comes a day after the Pentagon was questioned about why Defense Secretary Ash Carter had failed to reach out to his Turkish counterpart in the aftermath of Friday’s failed military coup attempt.
Carter did call Turkish Minister of Defense Fikri Isik in June to express his condolences after the terrorist attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport.
Turkey is one of the most important members of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as it provides use of the Incirlik air base to carry out airstrikes, and is responsible for sealing the border to cut off the flow of foreign fighters and supplies to Islamic State fighters in Syria.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook insisted Monday that it was not necessary for Carter to personally contact Isik this time, because he would see him at the gathering of ministers this week at Joint Base Andrews, and because there had been military-to-military contacts, as well as other official consultations.
“There have been conversations, again, with commanders at the base itself and our other personnel within Turkey. And of course, very close conversations with the president’s entire national security team,” Cook said. “As you know, secretary — the secretary of state’s spoken to the — the foreign minister. So we’ve had conversations.”
Secretary of State John Kerry had at least three conversations over the weekend with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and delivered a warning that Turkey’s actions in the aftermath of the coup would be watched carefully by other NATO nations.
“NATO also has a requirement with respect to democracy, and NATO will indeed measure very carefully what is happening,” Kerry said in remarks in Brussels Monday.
Thirty-four nations plus NATO have been invited to attend the second meeting of defense ministers contributing forces or basing to the counter-Islamic State coalition according to a Pentagon statement.
