In spite of the tight security measures, groups numbering in the dozens were to be seen congregating in a strategic location near the Turkish prime minister's headquarters in Istanbul during the recent visit of US Vice-President Joe Biden to Istanbul. And, pointing out that the members of these groups belonged to ultra-right associations and organisations banned in the Turkish security lexicon, observers have taken the opportunity to attack the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) by noting that these groups are wanted by the police. During the visit, members of the groups shouted “down with US imperialism”, “leave our country, enemy of mankind”, “the US is a criminal” and other such slogans. They must have hoped that the US vice-president would hear them as he made his way to meetings at the city's Dolmabahce Palace. However, the groups are just as antagonistic, if not more so, to the ruling party and its chiefs, who they believe are willing to sacrifice Turkish unity in order to solve the Kurdish question. As an indication of this sentiment they also shouted “long live an independent Turkey”. A red carpet welcome received the visiting US vice-president, and in the press conference held in one of the wings of the famous palace overlooking the Bosphorus all the required courtesies were paid. Turkey and the US might differ on some issues and even quarrel, but they remain close allies. Both Biden and his host Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu appear to have agreed not to bring up the delicate subject of whether Biden had or had not apologised for remarks in which he accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of supporting jihadist terrorism. Davutoglu had earlier said that the US vice-president had apologised, though Biden denied this. Whatever the case may be, the smile did not leave Biden's face from the moment he set foot in Istanbul, the seat of the erstwhile Ottoman Empire, to the moment he left. This was in spite of the fact that he made no progress in advancing the aims of his visit, apart from securing promises from his Turkish interlocutors to try to stem the flow of takfiri jihadists into Syria. Some observers suggested that even before he had set off to Anatolia Biden had been certain that he would not obtain anything from the powers-that-be in Turkey, and that he had resolved to go ahead with the visit anyway in order to put on record another instance of Erdogan's intransigence. As though to aggravate the suppressed diplomatic tensions, a week ago three US Navy sailors from the USS Ross, a guided-missile destroyer then docked in the Bosphorus, were roughed up by anti-US demonstrators in Istanbul. Only hours before he met with Biden, Davutoglu was in Erbil in northern Iraq from where he stressed that it would be impossible to bring lasting peace to Syria as long as Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad remained in power. Speaking at a press conference after his plane landed at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, he then underscored his remarks, inviting his listeners to look at how conditions had improved in Iraq after the formation of the new government. In Syria, there could not be peace as long as there were efforts to destroy a terrorist organisation in one part of the country while the regime in Damascus continued to use every sort of genocidal weapon against its own people in another, he said. He then reiterated the same ideas, if couched in different terms, during his meeting with the US vice-president. During his talks with Biden, Erdogan reiterated his demand that the international coalition formed to fight Islamic State (IS) fighters in Iraq and Syria create a safe zone in northern Syria in order to give moderate fighters a place to regroup and launch offensives. The target, of course, would be the regime in Damascus. However, Biden made it clear that there would be no no-fly zone against the Syrian airforce, as the US priority was to eliminate IS not Al-Assad. This insistence on the part of the Obama administration was met with a Turkish digging in of heels. During a meeting on the fringes of the recent G20 Summit in Brisbane, Davutoglu had already informed US Secretary of State John Kerry that the logistical details regarding the implementation of Turkey's pledge to train moderate Syrian fighters to combat IS terrorists were nearing completion, alluding to negotiations with a US military delegation then underway in Ankara exploring the possibility of using the Incirlik military base in the south-eastern Anatolian province of Adana. By the time of Biden's visit to Istanbul all progress in these areas had ground to a halt. No decision was subsequently taken on the training of fighters to combat IS or on the availability of the Incirlik base. The former US ambassador to both Ankara and Baghdad James Jeffrey suggested that if Washington modified its current stance on Syria and insisted that Al-Assad had to go, Turkey in exchange should agree to become more effectively involved in the war against IS. However, even this compromise solution appeared to be out of reach. There remains the problem of the Syrian refugees. Now numbering over 1,600,000, people, many of these have ranged beyond the refugee camps and border areas and made their way to Istanbul and other major Turkish cities. When the AKP government opened the country's doors to the Syrian refugees, it had not imagined that this would spiral into a burden that would consume more than $4 billion worth of government resources. Ankara has received only crumbs from the international community (about $146 million) to help defray the costs of this burden, which appears likely to mount further. Reports suggesting that the Syrian regime is now preparing for an assault against Aleppo in order to recapture the northern Syrian city have also driven droves of its inhabitants to seek refuge in the Turkish border town of Kilis only 60 km away, compounding the pressures on Erdogan and as if punishing the Turkish government for its drive to create a buffer zone.
