Sanliurfa (Turkey): Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not known as the kind of leader who readily admits mistakes, and Vice-President Joe Biden is well known for his capacity to make them.

So after Biden claimed that Erdogan had acknowledged fault in enabling the flow of foreign fighters across the Turkish border, it was inevitable that a firestorm would ensue.

Biden swiftly responded on Saturday to a demand by Erdogan for an apology, saying he regretted the criticism of Turkey and also a suggestion that other US allies had helped facilitate the rise of the extremist Daesh in Syria.

“The vice-president apologised for any implication that Turkey or other allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth of [Daesh] or other violent extremists in Syria,” the White House said in a statement.

There was no immediate response from Erdogan, who has frequently taken umbrage at comments made by US officials.

But this furore comes at a critical moment in the United States’ already fraught relationship with Nato ally Turkey. The United States is urgently seeking to persuade Turkey to join the international coalition formed to fight Daesh. The participation of Turkey, which shares a long border with Iraq and Syria and already hosts US troops, is considered vital.

But Turkey so far has declined.

Erdogan demanded the apology earlier on Saturday after journalists confronted him with Biden’s comments. The vice-president had claimed that Erdogan told him in a telephone call that Turkey had been wrong to allow thousands of foreign militants to enter Syria.

“He said, ‘You were right. We let too many people through.’ Now they’re trying to seal their border,” Biden said on Thursday in an address at the Harvard Kennedy School.

“If Biden said such a thing, he is history to me,” Erdogan said on Saturday, adding: “If he really said these words, then he should apologise to us.”

Although it was unclear whether Erdogan was more incensed that Biden had accused Turkey of permitting foreign fighters to enter Syria or by the claim that he acknowledged fault, he denied both.

“I never admitted any mistake, nor did we tell them that they were right,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News.

“We absolutely didn’t provide even the smallest amount of support to any terrorist organisation, including [Daesh],” he added. “There might have been people travelling on tourist visas, but no one with arms has ever crossed the Turkish border.”

Minimal contact

It is the second time this year that a disputed telephone conversation has disrupted the US-Turkish relationship. In January, Erdogan and President Barack Obama stopped speaking after Obama denied a comment Erdogan claimed he had made, promising to take action against a Turkish political foe who lives in the United States.

The two leaders spoke again in September, but their contact has been minimal. Obama left it to Biden to meet with Erdogan when the Turkish president visited New York for the UN General Assembly in September, and it is Biden who has been making the telephone calls seeking to coax Erdogan into supporting the coalition.

In the comments at Harvard, Biden said he had “a great relationship” with Erdogan. That now seems to be in question.

Biden’s remarks also risked angering other allies who have already signed up for the fight against Daesh, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who he said fuelled the rise of Daesh.

“Our allies in the region were our largest problem with Syria,” he said. “The Turks, who are great friends… the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down [Syrian President Bashar Al Assad] and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shiite war. What did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of weapons into anyone who would fight against Al Assad.

“Except that the people who were being supplied were [Jabhat] Al Nusra and Al Qaida and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world,” he added, naming Syria’s Al Qaida affiliate.

Biden said the support had now stopped.