US-Turkey talks on Syria intensify ahead of Erdogan’s meeting with Putin

US talks with Turkey over a safe zone in Syria have intensified this week ahead of a highly anticipated trip by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Moscow on Wednesday.

Following a visit by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to Ankara over the weekend and a call between US President Donald Trump and Mr Erdogan on Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed up with another phone conversation on Monday to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

According to the State Department “they discussed ongoing US-Turkish engagement as part of the deliberate and coordinated withdrawal of US forces from Syria.”

Washington “reiterated the commitment of the United States to addressing Turkish security concerns along the Turkey-Syria border, while emphasising the importance that the United State places on the protection of forces that worked with the United States and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS” the statement read.

The US efforts are zeroing in on finding a security and political arrangement that would both establish a Turkish safe zone on the border with Syria, and protect the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the area.

The proposed zone, as both Ankara and Washington have confirmed, would be 32km wide, and the Turkish government has said that it would be policed and controlled by Turkey.

Speaking on Monday, Mr Erdogan revealed part of his conversation with the US President.

He said Mr Trump expected the bilateral trade between the two countries to go up to $75 billion a year - an incentive that the White House has introduced to the Syrian withdrawal debate in order to woo Turkey.

Mr Erdogan expected the safe zone to include Manbij, which is now under SDF control.

“We will deliver Manbij to its real owners. We don’t have eyes on anybody’s land. Those who insistently want to keep us away from these regions are seeking to strengthen terror organisations” he said.

The Turkish President showed readiness to help defeat ISIS in Syria, but said his country would need “US logistical support” to do so. In the last week, ISIS has attacked US forces in Syria twice, in Manbij and on Tuesday in Hassaka.

The phone calls and diplomatic chatter between US and Turkey around Syria followed visits by national security adviser John Bolton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, US envoy against ISIS James Jeffrey and Syria coordinator Joel Rayburn to Ankara in the last three weeks. But those channels have only seen more urgency ahead of Mr Erdogan’s trip to Russia this week.

Nicholas Heras, a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security, described a consistent effort by the US to seek Turkey’s help and coordination as Washington looks to leave Syria.

“It’s no great secret that Trump's Syria team believes that the only pathway forward for the US is to strike a deal with Turkey,” Mr Heras said.

Mr Jeffrey's appointment last summer, a former US Ambassador to Turkey who speaks Turkish, “highlighted that fact clearly and well before Mr Trump announced his intent withdraw on December 19”, Mr Heras explained.

Since then, Turkey has released US Pastor Andrew Brunson, and Washington cleared a tentative $3.5 billion sale of Patriot surface-to-air missiles system to Ankara.

When it comes to Syria, Mr Heras said “there is really no appetite on the US side to handover America's zone in Syria to Assad, and therefore Turkey is seen as the best option.”

There is no clear timeline for US withdrawal.

How does this square with Mr Erdogan’s trip to see Vladimir Putin on Wednesday?

Mr Heras said “giving the US zone to Russia is still viewed as giving it to the Assad regime, and there is a lot of angst within the US team that Putin can offer Erdogan a better deal than Mr Trump can, especially if the Russians are willing to serve up the People's Protection Units (YPG) to Turkey on a silver platter, which the US military will not do.”

If Turkey and Russia strike a deal, for example “to swap Idlib to Moscow for hundreds of kilometres of border region east of the Euphrates for Ankara, it would be catastrophic for Trump's Syria team and would throw US planning to the wind,” Mr Heras argued.

“That is the American side's nightmare scenario now,” he said - and one driving the flood of calls between the two NATO allies.