By Janet Ekstract ISTANBUL- Strategic Mechanism meetings being held this week in Washington D.C. between U.S. Secretary of State and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will cover bilateral ties that include trade, investment, energy and climate along with strategic and security issues.
The meetings set to take place March7-8 are an opportunity for both the U.S. and Turkiye to boost relations. As a U.S. government official told Turkish journalists on March 6: “Together [with Turkiye], we are building a positive, forward looking strategic agenda to advance our shared objectives. We really need to seize this opportunity. This is something that we were working very hard on for quite some time.” Both Fidan and Blinken will chair the meetings and is the first Strategic Mechanism at the level of foreign ministers since January 2023.
The Strategic Mechanism meeting comes on the heels of U.S. Congress approving the sale of 40 new F-16 fighter jets to Turkiye which was widely seen as conditional on Turkiye’s ratifying Sweden’s bid to join NATO. An unnamed U.S official said: “It is time to re-energize this relationship and identify the areas on which we can have forward looking relations
