A year ago, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden sat with the New York Times editorial board and said “I am very concerned about [Turkey],” according to a video that caused controversy in Turkey over the summer a few months ago. Biden said the United States should take a different approach from the Trump administration and engage with a broad cross-section of Turkish society, promote the opposition and “speak out about what we think is wrong.” Biden seemed to think it was possible to bring Turkey back into the transatlantic community and even improve its worrisome human rights record.
Biden’s tough words reflect the fact that Turkey has been a major headache for U.S. policymakers over the last few years. Not surprisingly, senior Biden foreign policy officials have already started scratching their heads to formulate a policy towards this difficult ally.
