ANKARA: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday chided the United States for failing to meet Turkey’s conditions to play a bigger role in the anti-IS coalition in Syria, in a new sign of strains ahead of a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden arrives in Istanbul on Friday for a key three-day visit aimed at finding some common ground with Turkey in the fight against Islamic State (IS) militants who have captured swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Speaking to reporters at Ankara airport before leaving for a trip to Africa, Erdogan said the coalition “had not made the steps we asked them for.”

Turkey has insisted it will only play a major role in the coalition against IS if there is a coherent strategy to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power and if a security zone is set up along its 911-km border with Syria.

The government also so far has refused to allow US forces to carry out bombing raids from the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, forcing them to make far longer sorties from the Gulf.

Ankara also wants the United States to help train and equip a large contingent of rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces to fight against the Assad regime.

Erdogan said that the “parties have not taken any decisive steps toward the train-and-equip plan” for FSA fighters. “From the no-fly zone to the safety zone, and training and equipping, all these steps have to be taken now. “But the coalition forces haven’t taken the steps we asked them for or suggested to them.”