DM Monitoring
ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will hold a roundtable call with executives from some 20 large United States companies to discuss reforms and investment in Turkey.
The meeting will also highlight both countries’ growing cooperation, Turkey’s embassy in Washington confirmed Tuesday.
The call is said to be a prelude to a first in-person meeting between Erdoğan and U.S. President Joe Biden next month, a source told Reuters.
The sources, with knowledge of the conference call, said it was organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Turkish Presidency’s Investment Office, the Turkish Embassy and the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB).
An industry source said the call was being organized in anticipation of a planned meeting June 14 between Erdoğan and Biden on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels, their first in-person encounter since the U.S. election last November.
Another source familiar with the call said the U.S. government was not involved in planning the call. It was unclear which companies would attend.
The “CEO-level virtual roundtable” would include a wide range of U.S. industries, Yaprak Ece, an official at the Turkish Embassy, said in an email.
“President Erdoğan regularly meets with international investors (and) this event would highlight the two countries’ growing economic and trade cooperation, in addition to current economic affairs,” she said.
“It is a way to test the waters with U.S. companies, (a) kind of preliminary work prior to a face-to-face meeting with Biden,” a source, who is from industry and like the others requested anonymity, told media. Ankara “wants the domestic and international audience to get the message that basically says Turkey is an important partner,” the person added.
Another source said executives from Microsoft and Netflix are among those to join the call.
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce spokesperson said via email, “This meeting is private and off the record, so we are not able to provide any details.”
Erdoğan and Biden had a phone call April 23, the first since the American president assumed office in January. The two leaders agreed to discuss the full range of bilateral and regional issues at next month’s meeting.
Ankara and Washington disagree on a number of issues that have further strained bilateral ties; from Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems to U.S. support for the YPG terrorist group, as well as U.S. refusal to extradite Fetullah Gülen, leader of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
The purchase of the Russian-made systems in 2019 prompted the Donald Trump administration to remove Turkey from a consortium producing F-35 fighter jets.
The U.S. argued that the system was incompatible with NATO systems and could potentially be used by Russia to covertly obtain classified information on the F-35 jets.
Turkey, however, insists that the S-400 would not be integrated into NATO systems and would not pose a threat to the alliance.
In December, the U.S. decided to impose sanctions on Turkey over the purchase of the advanced air defense system.
