国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Analysts say Erdogans foreign visits not likely to trigger policy reset_时事

国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Analysts say Erdogans foreign visits not likely to trigger policy reset

The Turkish leader is scheduled to be in the United States on May 16-17 where he will meet with President Donald Trump for the first time, and their talks are expected to focus on Syria and U.S. military support for Kurdish militia in Syria.

Washington sees the Kurdish militia as a reliable ground force in the fight against the Islamic State (IS), but for Turkey, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) is simply a Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) outlawed by Ankara.

The United States has turned so far a deaf ear to Turkish outcry over its support to the YPG, which has carved out three autonomous cantons in northern Syria by taking advantage of the civil war.

Turkey sees the emergence of a YPG-controlled Kurdish autonomous region along the Turkish border, which may later gain independence, as a major threat to its national security.

In the past week, Turkish jets bombed PKK and YPG targets in northern Iraq and Syria, sparking concern and criticism from both Washington and Moscow.

On May 25, Erdogan will land in Brussels for a summit of NATO leaders, where he has the opportunity to meet with leaders of some EU countries.

Turkish calls since last year for a top-level meeting with the EU to discuss the problems in bilateral relations have gone unanswered so far.

Turkey has aspired to be a full EU member over the past decades, but their relations have been ruptured now and then by unending rows over issues like democracy, human rights and refugee.