In a span of five days last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered two diametrically opposed messages to Washington, highlighting his vacillations on ties with the United States and, more generally, with the West — a balancing act that he can no longer sustain.

In a Feb. 15 speech following the deaths of 13 Turkish captives at the hands of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a designated terrorist group, Erdogan fired a broadside at Washington for “siding with terrorists,” incensed with a US condemnation of the executions that seemed to take Turkey’s version of the events with a grain of salt. Referring to the PKK and its Syrian affiliates, Erdogan said, “You claim to not side with terrorists, to not side with the PKK, the YPG and the PYD, but you are clearly siding with and standing behind them.” He charged that the United States had “delivered thousands of truckloads of ammunition to terrorists” in northern Iraq.

Then, in a video address to the American Turkish community Feb. 20, Erdogan upheld the “strategic cooperation” between the two countries. “We believe that our common interests with America outweigh our disagreements by far. We are willing to further strengthen our cooperation with the new American administration, based on a long-term perspective and a win-win approach,” he said. 

Such dizzying turnabouts have less to do with Turkish-US ties and more with Turkey’s domestic politics and Erdogan’s indecision.