WASHINGTON—US President Barack Obama met his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Washington Thursday, the White House said, amid tensions over press freedom and the war in Syria.
Having previously stated the pair were unlikely to hold sit-down talks a decision widely perceived as a snub by Washington the White House said the two men had in fact met on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit.
They discussed US-Turkey cooperation on regional security, counter-terrorism and migration, it said.
The absence of a presidential meeting on Erdogan’s trip to the US capital had been glaring.
The two countries are meant to be close Nato allies in the thick of a fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.
But tensions have been stirred by Ankara’s attacks on Kurdish militants, some of whom are seen by Washington as the best bet for tackling the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
Turkey says the groups are linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has fought a long battle for Kurdish independence.
Turkish forays into northern Iraq have also strained ties.
The White House has been increasingly outspoken in recent months about threats to free speech and democracy in Turkey.
And on Thursday it restated its belief in the need for press freedom in Turkey, amid ugly scenes at an Erdogan speech in the US capital.
As the Turkish leader flew in to the US capital ahead of the nuclear safety summit, news broke of another deadly bomb attack targeting police in his country’s southeast, where his forces are battling Kurdish militants.
Against this backdrop his security detail was not amused to find a small group of protesters outside the Washington think tank where he was to speak, brandishing the banners of the YPG, a Kurdish militant group based in Syria.
Ankara regards the YPG as an affiliate of the PKK, Turkey’s main Kurdish separatist movement, and has declared it a terrorist threat. Washington sees the YPG guerrillas as key allies in its campaign against the Islamic State group.
Just ahead of Erdogan’s arrival at the Brookings Institute in Washington, Turkish security officials clashed with the crowd—both sides exchanging insults and scuffling—before local police were able to separate them.