Biden issues second apology, to United Arab Emirates, over comments
(1 day later)
SANLIURFA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not known as the kind of leader who readily admits mistakes, and Vice President Biden is well known for his capacity to make them.
SANLIURFA, Turkey — Vice President Biden apologized on Sunday for the second time in two days, in this instance to the United Arab Emirates, for comments he made suggesting that the United States’ Arab allies armed and funded terrorists in Syria.
So after Biden claimed that Erdogan had acknowledged fault in enabling the flow of foreign fighters across the Turkish border, it was inevitable that a firestorm would ensue.
The furor over the comments, made during a foreign policy address at Harvard University last week, have exposed deep rifts between the United States and its regional allies over who is to blame for the rise of the Islamic State and how to go about confronting it, underscoring the fragility of the coalition formed to fight the extremist group.
Biden swiftly responded Saturday to a demand by Erdogan for an apology, saying he regretted the criticism of Turkey and also a suggestion that other U.S. allies had helped facilitate the rise of the extremist Islamic State group in Syria.
The White House said Biden telephoned Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the most prominent Emirate leader, to say that the vice president did not intend to imply that the UAE supported terrorists.
“The vice president apologized for any implication that Turkey or other allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth of ISIL or other violent extremists in Syria,” the White House said in a statement, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
The call followed an angry statement from the UAE’s Foreign Ministry earlier in the day expressing “astonishment” at Biden’s remarks and demanding a “formal clarification.”
There was no immediate response from Erdogan, who has frequently taken umbrage at comments made by U.S. officials.
Biden had described the United States’ allies as the “biggest problem” in the fight against terrorism, then went on to name Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
But this furor comes at a critical moment in the United States’ already fraught relationship with NATO ally Turkey. The United States is urgently seeking to persuade Turkey to join the international coalition formed to fight the Islamic State. The participation of Turkey, which shares a long border with Iraq and Syria and already hosts U.S. troops, is considered vital.
Turkey was the first to complain, about a different remark made on the same occasion in which Biden claimed that Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan had told him that Turkey was wrong to let foreign fighters cross the Turkish border into Syria.
But Turkey so far has declined.
Erdogan responded with a furious outburst, calling his relationship with Biden “history,” demanding an apology and denying that he had either made the comment to Biden or that Turkey had allowed foreign fighters to cross its borders.
Erdogan demanded the apology earlier Saturday after journalists confronted him with Biden’s comments. The vice president had claimed that Erdogan told him in a telephone call that Turkey had been wrong to allow thousands of foreign jihadists to enter Syria.
Biden called Erdogan on Saturday to apologize, and the White House issued a separate statement in which the vice president said that Biden did not intend to imply that any of those allies had “intentionally” facilitated terrorists.
“He said, ‘You were right. We let too many people through.’ Now they’re trying to seal their border,” Biden said Thursday in an address at the Harvard Kennedy School.
The United Arab Emirates is a key member of the international coalition formed to confront the Islamic State, and made headlines last week when it dispatched a female pilot to bomb Iraq. A statement from the UAE’s Foreign Ministry said Biden had overlooked the UAE’s “role in confronting extremism and terrorism.”
“If Biden said such a thing, he is history to me,” Erdogan said Saturday, adding: “If he really said these words, then he should apologize to us.”
The UAE’s contribution, the statement added pointedly, “comes as part of a more comprehensive political stand against this plague,” hinting at one of the biggest points of contention between the United States and its regional allies over who is to blame for the rise of the Islamic State.
Although it was unclear whether Erdogan was more incensed that Biden had accused Turkey of permitting foreign fighters to enter Syria or by the claim that he acknowledged fault, he denied both.
As Biden’s frank comments revealed, many in the Obama administration hold the Gulf Arab states and Turkey largely responsible for fueling the extremist forces that have eclipsed the more moderate, Western-backed rebels.
“I never admitted any mistake, nor did we tell them that they were right,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News.
“They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad,” Biden said during the address at Harvard, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “Except that the people who were being supplied were [Jabhat] al-Nusra and al-Qaeda,” he added, naming Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate.
“We absolutely didn’t provide even the smallest amount of support to any terrorist organization, including the Islamic State,” he added. “There might have been people traveling on tourist visas, but no one with arms has ever crossed the Turkish border.”
The United States’ regional allies, however, fault the Obama administration for not fulfilling promises of support to the more moderate rebels or pushing more aggressively for Assad’s ouster, thereby enabling extremists to gain the upper hand. They want the fight against terrorism to include a broader settlement that would include regime change in Damascus.
It is the second time this year that a disputed telephone conversation has disrupted the U.S.-Turkish relationship. In January, Erdogan and President Obama stopped speaking after Obama denied a comment Erdogan claimed he had made, promising to take action against a Turkish political foe who lives in the United States.
Turkey has not decided whether it will offer military support to the coalition, and the furor could jeopardize intense U.S. efforts to persuade it to do so. Turkey has publicly stated that it does not think a war against the Islamic State that does not also include a plan to remove Assad will work.
The two leaders spoke again in September, but their contact has been minimal. Obama left it to Biden to meet with Erdogan when the Turkish president visited New York for the U.N. General Assembly in September, and it is Biden who has been making the telephone calls seeking to coax Erdogan into supporting the coalition.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have not issued a response to the Biden comments.
In the comments at Harvard, Biden said he had “a great relationship” with Erdogan. That now seems to be in question.
Biden’s remarks also risked angering other allies who have already signed up for the fight against the Islamic State, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who he said fueled the rise of the Islamic State.
“Our allies in the region were our largest problem with Syria,” he said. “The Turks, who are great friends . . . the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war. What did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad.
“Except that the people who were being supplied were [Jabhat] al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world,” he added, naming Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate.
Biden said the support had now stopped, and his apology came before those other allies had gotten around to responding
