Thread by @jaketapper

Doing what Erdogan wants in Northern Syria at the expense of US allies the Kurds?

Threatening but not imposing new sanctions today?

Why?

Trump has deferred to Erdogan an extraordinary number of times with no real explanation. 1/

https://twitter.com/theleadcnn/status/1182787375887536128

2/ The weirdness begins with Michael Flynn, an unregistered lobbyist for Turkey when he was tapped as Nat Sec Adviser.

3/ Per former CIA director James Woolsey, Flynn – while advising the Trump campaign – met with Turkish officials to discuss forcibly moving Erdogan foe/Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulan from Pennsylvania to Turkey.

wsj.com/articles/ex-ci…

4/ Then. as first reported by Bloomberg this week, Trump – at the urging of Giuliani – pushed Secretary of State Tillerson to drop a criminal case against Reza Zerrab, a Turkish gold trader who had been part of conspiracy for Iran to avoid US sanctions.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

5/ Zerrab had an office in Trump Towers Istanbul; Giuliani represented him.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

6/ Odder still: The US has not yet imposed a fine against Turkish state-owned Halkbank, despite its participating in Zerrab’s conspiracy, the biggest Iran-sanctions-evading scheme uncovered.

Why?

ft.com/content/b548a6…

7/ Withdrawing from the Iran deal and imposing new US sanctions against Iran is arguably President Trump’s most consequential foreign policy action. Why has he refrained from fining the biggest violator of the sanctions?

The Trump administration declined to comment.

8/ Moreover, Turkey continues to say it will not abide US sanctions against Iran and this doesn’t seem to arouse much ire from the White House.

voanews.com/europe/erdogan…

9/ Then there’s Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 Missile Defense System.

This is supposed to automatically trigger sanctions though CAATSA, a 2017 federal law versus Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

washingtonpost.com/world/national…

10/ But so far the president has not imposed any sanctions.

Why not?

11/ State Department spox: “We continue to urge Turkey to reconsider their receipt of the S-400. We have been clear: Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400 is not consistent with our shared commitments as NATO Allies and it is incompatible with the F-35....

12/ “... Our decision to unwind Turkey from the F-35 program shows how seriously we take this issue. There is a deliberative process ongoing on the issue of CAATSA sanctions. We do not comment on internal deliberations prior to a decision.”

13/ A lot of deferring to Erdogan even when it is in complete opposition to US interests. Why?