Washington, June 14 (TIWN) In a bid to stabilise the troubled ties with Turkey, US President Joe Biden is heading to his first face-to-face meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Brussels.

"Biden doesn't have much interest in or expectations from Erdogan beyond pursuing a few transactional deals, such as further US-Turkish cooperation in Afghanistan and Ankara de-escalating tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean in exchange for Euro-American goodwill," said Aykan Erdemir, senior Director of the Turkey programme with the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, and a former member of the Turkish Parliament. 

"For Erdogan, the stakes are higher," he said, pointing to the Turkish President's push to walk back tense relations with the US and NATO as a way to help relieve an economic crisis and a downturn in the Turkish lira. 

"The Turkish president is desperate to offer this meeting to domestic and global investors as proof that bilateral relations are improving," Erdemir added.  "We are open and transparent in all talks (on the S-400 issue)" Defence Minister Hulusi Akar reportedly said at the opening of a NATO building in Istanbul.