♪ it is good to have you with us. more than 300 schoolboys objected -- adducted -- abducted last week have been released. there has been pressure on the government to improve security. >> so far, 340 schoolchildren, we understand four have joined, so we have 344 children that are on their way now.

they say they have surrendered all that is with them. we will find out from parents whether there are still some left. even the figure we give was not static because we are looking at between 330 to 400. now we have 344. so we will know by tomorrow. >> a panel of experts advising the fda has recommended the approval of a second vaccine. the committee endorsed the moderna vaccine a week after endorsing the pfizer jab. france's president has become the latest world leader to test positive for covid-19. several other european leaders have entered isolation because of contact they had with him in recent days.

donald trump has spoken with the king of saudi arabia. a statement says the two discuss regional security issues including the golf blockade on g -- gulf blockade on qatar. inside story next. ♪ >> turkey under u.s. sanctions. a defined president says the action is an attack on his country's rights. how will this play out? this is inside story. ♪

>> welcome to the program. it has been battered with u.s. sanctions over the deployment of russian defense weapons. turkey has said it is evaluating appropriate action for what it considers a hostile attack. on, has insisted it will not rollback its missile system. turkey's military agency has had authorizations banned by the u.s. the organization's top officials will face asset freezes and visa restrictions. the delayed move comes as president-elect joe biden prepared to take office and it is expected to increase tensions

between washington. the turkish president says sanctions going to stop his country from building up its defenses. >> from our nato ally the united states, we expect support in our battle against tourist -- against terrorist organizations, not sanctions. we are never a country that chases after conflict with its neighbors. we are fighting for the prosperity of our region and the world. but this situation does not mean we will remain silent against our rights, laws, and sovereignty being trampled. just like we don't want anyone's rights. we won't allow anyone to take our rights either. >> mike pompeo has urged turkey to resolve the dispute. he said, turkey is a valued ally and an important security partner for the u.s. and we seek

to continue our decades long history of productive cooperation by removing the obstacle of turkeys as 400 position as soon as possible. washington considers that as 400 -- s400 incompatible. ankala says it was forced because the u.s. refused to sell it american-made missiles. turkey brokered a deal with russia for the system in 2017 and accepted the first delivery of the surface to air missile last year. the u.s. responded by cutting turkey out of its fighter jet program. turkey tested the missile defense system in october for the first time, drawing condemnation from the pentagon. ♪

joining us are our guests in washington, d.c., senior fellow of the center for american progress and former assistant secretary of defense, and the chief strategy officer for rasmussen global. you suffer -- you served the defense colonel. welcome to you all. these sanctions, should we describe them as light or heavy and have the potential to hurt turkey's military industry? >> they do have the capability to do that. the united states is concerned that with turkey buying the s400 , it will compromise the security of the united states

and the nato alliance and basically make it more difficult for nato and the united states to deal with a potential threat from russia if they should decide to go into the baltics or go into ukraine. that is what they are trying to do, to say, to send a signal, you have to stop this because if you don't, you will undermine the purpose of the alliance as well as u.s. security. >> could be talk about a defining moment that could redefine turkey-u.s. relations? >> i think it is an important line that has been crossed by the united states. those sanctions are targeted, they are mostly focused it -- focused on the procurement agency. beyond that, it will have consequences for what turkey is

trying to do in terms of bending its defense capabilities because to do that, it needs access to u.s. and western technology and expertise and with those sanctions, there is going to be western counterpart -- less western country possibly to share technology. we did cross a line, but it is not a point of no return. the real question is how a biden administration is going to use that to try to do a reset with turkey. >> use of the turkish procurement agency once be able to deal with u.s. companies, get a transfer of technology, they won't be able to get any loans or finance support from any american financial institution. this is an agency that is widely

seen as the pride of the military establishment in turkey. is this a major setback for turkey? >> i do not think so because even my friend does not know the real name of the turkish defense agency. this is not a procurement agency, this is the place that all projects are being created. the procurement agency is under a different branch of the mistry of defense. the sanctions will have any effect to this agency, but this is not a procurement agency. that will be an ongoing project which will not be affected such as the f16 programs, but if the ssp wants to buy some issues from the united states, the

projects could be affected, but i do not think it will create much problem for the turkish defense agency in the coming years, especially in terms of logistics. for the large platforms like the turkish fighter jet programs will be affected, but those are all the long programs. i can't say that we will take a look at what happens. >> we will talk more in detail about what happens when joe biden takes over, but for the time being, when you are a policymaker and we impose sanctions, which are considered the first of their kind against a nato ally, aren't you risking in a way to upset a political order or consensus that has prevailed for decades? >> there is no doubt about the

fact that this is not good for the nato alliance, but the conflict between the united states and turkey has been brewing for a while. the trump was very upset when we partnered with a turkish group to drive isis out of iraq and out of syria, and then the turks equated the ypg to the pkk, which is a terrorist group, so it has made it more difficult for those people who are willing to fight and die to defeat isis. in libya, after nato went into get rid of qaddafi and we put in another government, the turks backed the general and his attempt to undermine the nato-recognized government. the turks also blamed a turkish

american pastor for an attempted coup against erdogan when he had no role in it. there has been a lot of things going on and it does put the alliance in jeopardy, so it is important that when joe biden comes in, that these sanctions will get the turks back to the table and maybe move away from buying russian equipment. >> you could use these particular sanctions as leverage against turkey but many are concerned that this is something that could have far-reaching consequences to the point that it could even affect the nato alliance itself. >> you are this is where i -- you are right. this is where i differ from my colleague. there is a direct affect on the

institutions, the actors targeted explicitly under the sanction, then you have a deterrence effect. all the other actors in that business, in this particular case, the different sector will be deterred from doing business with their turkish counterparts for fear of having primary or secondary effects of the u.s. sanctions. we should not underestimate the weight of the sanctions and the fact that they have been written by the congress. this is not an executive order which can be changed with one pen, this has been voted by the congress and it would be difficult to undo. i do think joe biden will have both leverage and something difficult to undo unless erdogan is willing to give assurances that he will somehow realign with some of the u.s. interests. i think there is some optimism. erdogan's response to u.s. sanctions was for his own stand

out pretty mild. >> the turkish establishment has been saying for some time, it is simple, we would like to have patriot symptoms -- systems. we went for the russians. that is not the americans are saying, they are saying this is wrong, that is not exactly what happened between turkey and the u.s.. >> let me remind you that turkey requested from the u.s. and said for the israelis to buy the missile-defense systems, but the united states refused it. later, turkey opened a bidding. china, france, together with the united states and russia was on the bidding and according to this bidding, turkey wanted two criteria. one is the price, the second is the technology transfer. according to the bidding, the united states refused the

technology transfer and after that, turkey decided to buy the missile system, also the s300 systems were used without opposition by the united states. i do not think that this problem is only the s400 system because you look at mike pompeo's declarations and james jeffrey's statements, you can understand because they say that turkey is one of the united states' allies in the good old days but when it comes to now, turkey is creating lots of initiatives in the middle east and the mediterranean independently, so we should take those capabilities from the hands of the turkish government. this is the issue that they should discuss. the other issue is, my colleague

from the united states stated that the turks and ypg, let me remind you that turkey is the country we call for the anti-isis government more than 67 countries and turkey is the only country who fought with isis on the ground. all of them came and gone and turned back. for this reason, we should understand that the united states should be an ally with turkey or they should provide hundreds of thousands of weapons to the terrorist organization which turkey claims of. >> joe biden will inherit this extremely delicate issue. do you see the potential for a reset of relations between turkey and the u.s. under joe biden? >> i think there is a potential when you have a new administration to start over and

basically, you have people coming in who worked for obama, so they are not going to have to start a new, they have relationships with turkey, and i am sure that they may attempt to do that because the united states and the biden administration want to have less impact were less involvement in the middle east and deal with china. they can do -- these issues are solvable. they talked about transferring the technology of the patriot system. i think that can be done under a biden administration. i think there is something that they can work out. the biden administration could also decide what they want to do in syria in terms of u.s.

presence. yes, i think they can start a new, and hopefully, given the fact that you have different people, they will be able to work out their relationship with turkey because it is important to the stability of europe and the effectiveness of nato. >> with the pressure building on turkey from the americans and eu and nato, don't you see this as a tactic that could potentially backfire in the future, driving the turks more towards the chinese and russians? >> i think that is already the case. my colleague omitted to say that ankara began to embrace the russian s400 as a way to make up between erdogan and putin following a tense moment, turkey fighter jets had to basically

brought down a russian one, and that was the way to erdogan and putin to come back to dialogue and some kind of trees. the s400 is a geopolitical choice. to your question, i do think it is a fine balance and even though we have to put pressure on erdogan, we also have the only way out will be if we meet some of his genuine concerns starting with syria. the obama administration officials will be in the biden administration, i think it is a good thing, but this administration made lots of mistakes in syria and created a lot of misunderstandings between washington and ankara which led to anger on the ankara side and the will to work with the russians. >> you do understand that when

joe biden takes over and his team is in charge, one of the first things they will address will they have two options, run out's ownership of the s400 or allow for a joint monitoring committee very have to be pretty much in control of what happens and how do you deploy the s400. will erdogan accept these? >> i do not think erdogan will accept the first choice, getting out of the s400 system out of turkey. but the second choice, turkey already offered to the united states. that has never been constituted from this perspective. we can understand the technical issue is not correct. this is a political issue but turkey will not increase the

tensions between the united states and turkey with a biden administration, it will try to ease and resolve the problem but it does not mean that turkey will give up its own sovereign rights. i also want to say one word. when we are tacking -- talking about allies, we must not say, we must pressure erdogan, we must pressure biden. we are not political guys discussing these issues in our congress or parliaments. we should press to the adder one administration is giving some clues. >> when you look at both administrations, obama and trump administrations, they took a backstage position when it comes to the middle east and north africa. which paved the way for countries like russia and turkey to expand the geopolitical clouds. you come too late and say, we

need to implement sanctions here. don't you think that it is about time to reach out to turkey in particular for the next administration to move forward? >> i think so. you can work out a deal where they are shelling -- sharing the intelligence and allowing turkey to get back into the f35 program. you are right, the united states wants to get out of the middle east, we have been there for a long time. the main emphasis of the biden administration is to be getting the iran nuclear deal back on track and that will involve working with russia and china as well as our european allies. i think they would like to put this issue aside and move on to other things. given the fact that it is a new administration that gives them an opportunity to do this and come up with a compromise that

involves some sharing of the technology of the s400 along with allowing turkey back into the f-35 program because in addition to everything else, the u.s. base is important to u.s. security in europe and the middle east. >> we are talking about extremely interconnected issues. i would like to go to you about nato and the eu in particular, turkey anticipating sanctions in the near future. they said they will never abandon their east mediterranean are we bracing for more confrontation -- eat mediterranean right -- east mediterranean right. are we bracing for more confrontation? >> the main thrust of the

sanctions are being kept for later for march of next year. i think there is still this power game active who is going to blink first. macron has managed to rally a majority of eu member states behind him and his claim that turkey's activities are no longer acceptable. we will have to see how erdogan is going to manage that. i think there was intention on the eu side to have some briefing space between now and march 2 wait for the new u.s. administration to come in -- march to wait for the new u.s. administration to come in. >> if you look at turkey right now, they are stretching their capabilities to the extent they are involved in libya, the east mediterranean, the syrian conflict, they have problems with the americans, they have their own economic problems. isn't this the moment of

reckoning for president at a to say, i would rather negotiate a dignified settlement with all those key allies instead of a confrontation? in a confrontation, the turkish economy could pay a price. >> that is correct but erdogan is already giving a hand to the european union and the united states. turkey in libya many times stated an offer that france is opening an area for the russian naval base inside libya and that will threaten the security of nato and the southern flank of the eu and turkey offered it many times, but the turkish backed government is supported by the fence and eu, no one came out to the -- again, let's look

at the problem in syria. the syrian crisis is a crisis for the european side. refugees are a big problem for turkey but also for the eu. russian airplanes are bombing turkish soldiers. they could not seek help from the eu, they cannot see help from nato and the united states. so putting some stamp that turkey is working inside syria for that nato and the vector of the european union is not correct. turkey is hoping for many times to work together inside syria, inside mediterranean, inside libya. but that has never been accepted by nato. >> it is interesting to see how this goes in the near future and whether erdogan and joe biden will have a chance to reconcile and set aside those differences.

i really appreciate your insight and your time thank you for watching, you can see the program any time by visiting our website for further discussion, go to our facebook page. you can also join the conversation on twitter. the entire team here. bye for now. ♪ rbr a÷é÷é÷é÷él]dddddg

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