Turkish President, Recep Erdogan, says he will first speak to Donald Trump by phone before making a decision on whether or not to visit the U.S. president next week.
“We will have a phone call with Trump and make our final decision accordingly,” Erdogan said in parliament on Tuesday, state broadcaster TRT reported.
Trump has invited Erdogan to the White House on Nov.13.
The Turkish leader was incensed by two votes in the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 29, recognising the mass killings of Armenians a century back as genocide and a bipartisan bill calling for sanctions on Turkey over its offensive in north-eastern Syria.
Ankara rejects the use of the term genocide to describe the expulsion and killings of nearly 1.5 million Armenians during World War I by the Ottoman Empire, of which Turkey is the successor state.
“They take decisions in their parliament which are null and void for us,” Erdogan said.
In spite of the tensions between the NATO allies on issues including Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system and the ever-present threat of sanctions, Trump and Erdogan seemingly have a strong relationship.
It was after a call between them on Oct. 6 that the White House announced a stunning policy reversal in Syria by pulling back U.S. troops and abandoning its Syrian Kurdish partners to make way for Turkey’s incursion three days later.
Referring to recent anti-Turkey sentiment in the US, Erdogan said: “Those who threaten us with sanctions apparently do not know that Allah is the only sanctioning authority for us.”
