President Donald Trump will meet with his Turkish counterpart in Washington next week, the White House announced Wednesday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will visit the nation's capital and will drop by the White House May 16 for a meeting with Trump. The topic of conversation will be combatting terrorism.
"The two leaders will discuss how to further strengthen our bilateral relationship and deepen our cooperation to confront terrorism in all its forms," a White House statement read, reports Politico.
On Tuesday, Trump approved a Pentagon plan to provide heavier arms to Kurdish militants in Syria in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). Turkey opposes the plan, with its Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli calling it "unacceptable."
Turkey believes the Kurdish militants, known as YPG, are an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party — which the U.S., Turkey, and Europe consider a terror group, Reuters reports.
"We want to believe that our allies will prefer to side with us, not with a terrorist organization," Erdoğan said Wednesday.
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