ANKARA (Middle East Eye) – Senior Turkish officials have called former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a liar, branding the allegations in his new book misinformation, which they said he was using in an attempt to propel him to the presidency.
Pompeo wrote that in 2019 he tried to “break through” a locked door in Ankara’s presidential complex to reach then-vice president Mike Pence, who was having a longer than expected tete-a-tete with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In his memoir Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, released on Tuesday, Pompeo says the Trump administration in October 2019 convinced Erdogan to sign a ceasefire deal in northern Syria following a Turkish military operation to seize areas formerly controlled by the U.S. military.
According to Pompeo, Pence spent 50 minutes with Erdogan alone at the presidency, prompting the secretary of state to try and break the locked door of the room they were meeting in. Pompeo’s effort to break down the door scared his security team, who thought Turkish guards would react aggressively, he wrote. However, Pompeo said Turkish security quickly let him through and U.S. officials joined Erdogan’s meeting with Pence.
Ibrahim Kalin, the Turkish president’s chief advisor and spokesperson, responded to Pompeo, saying that Pence wasn’t alone with Erdogan as he was accompanied by then-special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey, as well as Kalin himself.
“As the conversation went on, Pompeo had a total meltdown outside, we learned later,” he told Hurriyet newspaper. “He physically made a move towards the door to enter and join the meeting, even though his vice president didn’t want him to.”
Kalin said Pence never asked Turkish officials to invite Pompeo to the room.
Pompeo also wrote in his book that the Turkish military wasn’t qualified enough to beat the Daesh in 2017 and that’s why they worked with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is led by Kurdish groups viewed as terrorists by Ankara.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a televised briefing on Thursday that the Turkish military at the time had capacity to defeat Daesh as it had already seized a big chunk of territory from both the terrorist group and Kurdish groups.
“I will say there is misinformation in those statements. I’m being diplomatic but you can call it a lie,” he said. “He must have written this book for his upcoming presidential campaign, that’s why there is false information there.”