Silence before the storm in Turkish-US relations?

Whenever you ask diplomatic sources about U.S.-Turkey relations, the kind of answer you get is usually about the ?absence of any problems.?

Relations between Turkey and the United States seem to work well at the bureaucratic level on matters of daily needs between diplomats, intelligence officers and soldiers. The fact that the Commander of the Turkish Land Forces General Hulusi Akar received a Legion of Merit medal from the U.S. Department of Defense is an indication of close cooperation in action.

However, it is difficult to say the same at the political level nowadays. For example, cooperation at the bureaucratic level did not help Turkey?s European Union Affairs Minister Volkan Bozk?r, a former diplomat himself, get political appointments suitable for his position when he was in Washington DC earlier this month.

The last telephone call made public between Turkish President Tayyip Erdo?an and U.S. President Barack Obama was on Oct. 18 (Oct. 19 in Turkish time), 2014. That conversation was mostly about the predominantly Kurdish-populated Syrian border town of Kobane, which was at the time under attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Obama was telling Erdo?an about the U.S. air drop that was due to start the next morning in support of the Kurdish fighters resisting against the ISIL advance.

With the help of that air drop and with Turkey?s opening of its territory for the passage of fighters from Iraq?s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to Kobane, the ISIL attack was beaten back.

But since that call there have been a number of rows between the Erdo?an and Obama administrations, usually triggered by a remark from Erdo?an himself, and usually on matters related to Western hypocrisy about Bashar al-Assad...