Jared Kushner meets Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with U.S. President Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, during the American official’s regional tour to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Background 

Jared Corey Kushner is an American investor, real-estate developer, and newspaper publisher who is currently senior advisor to his father-in-law, Donald Trump, the President of the United States. Kushner is the elder son of the former real-estate developer Charles Kushner, the son of immigrants from USSR, and is married to Ivanka Trump, President Trump's daughter and advisor.

During the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, Kushner helped develop and run Trump's digital media strategy. On January 9, 2017, he was named as a senior White House advisor.

Trump put Kushner in charge of brokering peace in Israeli–Palestinian conflict, as well as making deals with foreign countries, although in what way he is in charge is unclear. On August 24, 2017, Kushner travelled to Israel to talk to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He then travelled to Palestine to meet President Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to restart a peace process in the Middle East.

In late March 2017, Jared Kushner was also given the new role of leading the "White House Office of American Innovation", where Kushner reportedly has been focusing on improving governmental efforts with regard to Veterans Affairs, information-technology contracting, and the opioid crisis. Kushner was involved in the sale of $100+ billion of arms to Saudi Arabia, and during a meeting with Saudi officials at the White House, he called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson to ask for a lower price on a radar system to detect ballistic missiles.

Analysis

Erdogan regards himself as a champion of the Palestinians and Turkey has often been vocal in its criticism of the Israeli government and Washington, especially after Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the U.S. Embassy there last year.

Erdogan said late Tuesday that the two men would discuss “economic and regional issues,” at the meeting at the presidential palace in Ankara although neither side said Syria was on the agenda. The men were joined by Erdogan’s son-in-law and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, according to Turkish presidency images.

Kushner’s visit follows from Trump’s shock announcement in December — welcomed by Ankara — that he would withdraw 2,000 American ground troops from northern Syria.

Ankara has called for a “safe zone” controlled by Turkish forces to be a buffer area against the U.S.-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia. Trump last week indicated that a few hundred “peacekeeping” troops would remain in Syria despite intentions to withdraw by April 30.

There have been tensions between Washington and Ankara over U.S. support to the YPG, which has spearheaded the West’s fight against the Islamic State extremist group.

Other issues remain between the NATO allies, including the U.S. failure to extradite the Pennsylvania-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey claims orchestrated the 2016 failed overthrow of Erdogan. Gulen strongly denies the accusations.

Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, the U.S. Middle East peace envoy, met officials from the United Arab Emirates and Oman on Monday alongside Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran. The officials were in Bahrain on Tuesday.

Kushner at a conference in Warsaw earlier this month presented Washington’s plans for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians to be formally presented after Israeli elections in April 2019.

Assessment 

Our assessment is that the Turkish opposition to the Kurdish YPG is unlikely to change even after Jared Kushner’s visit and we believe that most of his foreign diplomatic tours have been largely ineffective in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict as was assigned to him by President Trump.