Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told media Wednesday that he returned a letter from President Donald Trump warning him not to be a “fool” and use a partial pullout of the American military to attack Kurdish forces during a “limited incursion” into northern Syria.
The Turkish president also took the opportunity at an Oval Office meeting to spread propaganda targeting Kurds, according to an exclusive report from Axios.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle — including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — expressed concern earlier this week, about the White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Erdogan, apparently fearing that the meeting could descend into a bizarre display between the two leaders, but remained hopeful that discussions would be productive.
“Although I have expressed concerns about granting President Erdogan such an honor in light of his recent actions, I hope the meeting produces better behavior from this important NATO ally,” McConnell told media Wednesday, according to USA Today. “I share my colleagues’ uneasiness at seeing President Erdogan honored at the White House.”
McConnell’s concerns were, apparently, warranted. During a joint news conference between Trump and Erdogan, Erdogan claimed that he returned a threatening letter from Trump, warning him not to be a “fool” or a “tough guy” back to the president, undermining American efforts to exert some control over Turkey’s incursion into Syria.
Bloomberg News reports that “[Erdogan] returned the letter during a meeting at the White House earlier on Wednesday.”
President Donald Trump did not refute the allegation, but said, instead, that he was a “big fan” of the Turkish leader.
As the press conference kicked off, however, there were other signs that Turkey might not be listening to American warnings.
“At the outset of the news conference, Erdogan delivered a more than 10-minute long monologue, a few minutes longer than Trump’s opening remarks, while the U.S. president fidgeted at his lectern,” Bloomberg continued. “Erdogan complained about Kurdish forces in Syria allied with the U.S. that he considers ‘terrorists’ as well as a Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan blames for fomenting a 2016 coup.”
Gulen lives in Pennsylvania, and the United States has repeatedly refused to extradite him to Turkey.
Erdogan’s diatribe did not end there, however. He also criticized a Congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide — blocked Thursday morning by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) after Graham took a meeting with Erdogan — and pushed the President to call on a Turkish reporter, whom, it appears, Turkey had placed among the press pool.
“A friendly person from Turkey, friendly,” Erdogan said, when asked to select a reporter for a question. “Only friendly reporters. We like to see, there aren’t too many of them around.”
That reporter asked President Trump why he hosted Kurdish leaders at the White House, calling them “terrorists.”
Trump laughed off the incident, but the question has darker connotations. Erdogan has cracked down on press freedom in his home country, jailing journalists who question his leadership.
Weirder still, Axios reports that during the White House meetings, Erdogan pushed Members of Congress to watch propaganda videos about the Kurdish Army, leaving some legislators confused.
“An Oval Office meeting with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan yesterday took a dark turn when Erdoğan pulled out his iPad and made the group watch a propaganda video that depicted Kurds as terrorists,” Axios reported. Senators present called the video “unpersuasive,” according to the national security news outlet, and legislators “in the meeting took turns pushing back on Erdoğan, while Trump sat back and watched, intervening occasionally to play traffic cop.”