Washingtonpost.com | By Selcan Hacaoglu | Bloomberg

1. What’s the status of Turkey’s deal with Russia?

Turkey took delivery of the S-400 missiles made by Russia, NATO’s top foe, in 2019, two years after Ankara signed an agreement with Moscow to buy the system. In response, U.S. President Donald Trump approved sanctions targeting Turkey’s defense industry under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, known as CAATSA, while sparing the wider economy. Trump has long highlighted his personal rapport with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and had resisted bipartisan calls from Congress to punish Turkey. Chief among U.S. concerns is that the Russian system could be used to collect intelligence on the stealth capabilities of the U.S. F-35 fighter jet that Turkey has helped to build and wants to purchase.

2. What do the U.S. sanctions mean?

The penalties effectively cut off Turkey’s top defense procurement agency from U.S. financial institutions, military hardware and technology. The sanctions also target individuals including Ismail Demir, the head of the Turkish defense procurement body, known as SSB. The agency is barred from receiving loans from U.S. financial institutions. The U.S. will also oppose any credit extension to the body from international financial institutions and ban the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s assistance for exports to SSB. Typically, defense contracts valued at around $2 billion involving U.S. companies go through the agency each year. A significant portion of that trade will continue as the sanctions don’t apply retroactively. But new licenses or extensions to existing ones after expiry won’t be allowed. Congress is also pushing for more restrictive language in legislation that, if approved, would make it extremely difficult for Turkey to ask for waivers unless it physically gets rid of the Russian missiles.

3. What does Turkey say?

Erdogan argues Turkey’s Western allies failed to provide his country with the necessary defense against missile threats from neighboring Iran, Iraq and Syria, and had earlier threatened to close two critical NATO installations if the U.S. imposed sanctions. They are Incirlik Air Base, close to Syria, and an early-warning radar in the town of Kurecik that is part of NATO’s ballistic-missile defense capabilities. He now has to weigh his options with President-elect Joe Biden -- someone who has in the past criticized Erdogan for being authoritarian -- set to take office, and as the Turkish government finds itself increasingly at odds with world powers, including Russia. In a bid to avert U.S. punishment, Turkey hinted that it would ring-fence the S-400 missiles from NATO systems. Erdogan holds out the possibility of Turkey adding U.S. Patriot missile-defense batteries to its armory. However, it’s not clear whether U.S. lawmakers would let the sale go through.

4. Why is Turkey asserting its military independence?

Turkey’s purchase of Russian missiles reflected its desire for an increasingly independent role in regional policies and for economic ties with Russia. Turkey’s defense industry developed its own unmanned drones, ending a dependence on Israeli ones. However, Ankara’s interests are increasingly at odds with those of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Russia and Turkey were on opposite sides in Libya’s war before a truce was agreed and have clashing aims in Syria’s conflict. Turkey muscled into Russia’s Caucasus backyard with its support for Azerbaijan in a 44-day war with Armenian forces over Nagorno-Karabakh.

5. What are the divisions over Syria?

In October 2019, the Turkish military moved into Syria in a campaign aimed at the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, a Kurdish militia that had been a major component of the U.S.-led effort to combat Islamic State in Syria. Turkey views the YPG, which had wound up controlling about a third of Syria, as a security threat due to its ties to separatist Kurds in Turkey and aimed to push the group back from its border. Trump first gave Erdogan a green light for the operation, then reversed course and imposed sanctions on Turkey before lifting them after Turkey complied with a cease-fire agreement. U.S. lawmakers, including from Trump’s Republican Party, lambasted Turkey’s incursion and Trump’s complicity in it as a betrayal of a U.S. ally that would increase the likelihood of a resurgence by Islamic State. Turkey hit the brakes on its Syria foray after it reached separate agreements with the U.S. and Russia to keep Kurdish fighters in Syria away from its border, but sporadic clashes with Kurdish militants subsequently intensified.

6. What’s the deal with the Turkish bank?

As the tensions over Syria rose, the U.S. brought a criminal case against Turkish state-run lender Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS. Prosecutors accused Halkbank, as it’s known, of participating in a wide-ranging plot to violate prohibitions on Iran’s access to the U.S. financial system. The conspiracy involved high-ranking government officials in Iran and Turkey, the U.S. said. Two people, including a senior Halkbank executive, were previously convicted in the case. The late 2017 trial sparked vehement protests from Erdogan, who accused U.S. officials of trying to harm Turkey’s national and economic interests. He labeled the prosecution nothing short of an “international coup attempt.”

7. What else have the U.S. and Turkey sparred over?

Plenty. Their six-decade alliance has been strained by Washington’s refusal to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania whom Erdogan accuses of orchestrating a failed 2016 coup. Ties were inflamed by Turkey’s detention of an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, and employees of U.S. diplomatic missions in Turkey on suspected involvement in the attempted putsch or terrorism. Ankara is also irritated that Washington is backing Turkey’s rivals in a natural gas dispute with Cyprus and in other regional conflicts.

8. Is there a path to repairing ties?

Having served as a bulwark against Russia during the Cold War, Turkey believes it has valuable bargaining chips. It still hosts American nuclear warheads at Incirlik and military installations used by the U.S. to spy on Russia. It’s also the only barrier keeping many of more than 4 million refugees, most of them Syrians, from flooding into Europe. Trump has blamed problems between the countries on his predecessor Barack Obama’s failure to make a missile deal with Turkey. Ankara believes Biden’s enduring faith in multinational institutions and transatlantic ties will help it repair damage with NATO partners and improve the likelihood of long-sought weapons deals. Officials have said that Turkey’s footprint in Middle East battle zones boosts the alliance’s ability to contain an expansionist Russia.