“Turkey’s success [in Syria] has hidden, and still unclear costs, in Turkey’s relationship with the EU and the US. Likely not high, but that is uncertain.”
“If Congress wants to sanction Turkey, then it needs to sanction Turkey in the right ways and with an eye towards getting results — not just [doing] things that will piss them off.”
“[Trump’s] embrace [of Erdogan] and that willingness to ignore authoritarian repression and human rights abuses inside Turkey does not extend beyond the White House [and] many here in Washington have deep concerns with those issues.”
“Trump has sanctioned Turkey before, but he does this in such a transactional way that the message is, I will sanction you now but you just have to give me one concession and I will lift it.”
“Regardless of the oil’s origin and how many times it changed hands, it appears to have come to Turkey through Kurdish middlemen and smugglers. This is all part of the war economy we’ve been tracking along the Turkish-Syrian border.”
