For Inside members, I hope you can join us for an Inside Briefing tomorrow at 3 PM. We’ll be speaking with Heather Hurlburt, director of the New Models of Policy Change Program at New America Foundation. Heather held senior positions at the White House and State Department under Bill Clinton and frequently writes on foreign policy issues for New York Magazine.
Turkey and its shift away from NATO toward a de facto alliance with Russia has been a frequent part of the Trump story. We know this from the recent “green light” President Trump gave to a Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria. Michael Flynn’s main foreign entanglement during the 2016 election was work for Turkey, which focused on Turkish effort to bring US resident Fethullah Gülen back to Turkey to face trial. Rudy Giuliani also lobbied President Trump to eject Gulen and separately worked to get the US to drop charges against gold trader Reza Zarrab for sanctions busting, a case that threatens to embarrass Erdogan personally.
Tomorrow we will dig into the broader dynamics of the deteriorating US relationship with Turkey, its relationship with Russia and its own internal evolution under President Erdogan to put these disparate but related threads into proper perspective. I hope you can join us. An invitation and registration link is in your inbox. See you tomorrow.
