US, Turkey should avoid antagonizing each other, Gates says

[sabra]

Source: Turkish Daily News

<snip>

"Our two nations should oppose measures and rhetoric that needlessly and destructively antagonize each other," Gates said. "That includes symbolic resolutions by the United States Congress, as well as the type of anti-American and extremist rhetoric that sometimes finds a home in Turkey's political discourse."

He was referring to two Armenian genocide resolutions pending in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Senate, and a rising anti-American sentiment in public opinion polls in Turkey. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in early March sent identical letters to the Democratic House leadership, calling lawmakers to drop the genocide measure there on grounds of U.S. national security interests.

The resolutions sponsored by U.S. Armenians and their backers in Congress call for recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Turkey says that congressional approval of the resolutions would deeply hurt U.S.-Turkish ties and cooperation.Gates also talked about a threat posed by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Turkey's security, but his reference to the Turkish-Iraqi frontier as "Turkey's border with Iraqi Kurdish region" angered some Turkish military officials who accuse Iraqi Kurds of supporting the PKK."The situation on Turkey's border with Iraq's Kurdish region is of particular concern." Gates said. "We recognize that every Turkish citizen killed by the PKK is a setback for success in Iraq and a setback in our relationship with Turkey."

"We would prefer it if he said 'Turkey's border with Iraq.' This was a completely unnecessary reference to the Kurds," one military official said. "This was not random speech. Gates was reading from a text at a meeting of the ATC, where the Turkish defense establishment was heavily represented. And that establishment has serious concerns over Iraqi Kurdish ambitions on Turkish territory."



Read more: http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=69345

[goforit]

1. OK Gates....Now go tell it to your friggen jerk of a boss.......CHENEY!!!!

[Dover]

2. Confident Turkey looks east, not west

Confident Turkey looks east, not west


Simon Tisdall
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian


Turkey was not invited to Europe's big birthday bash yesterday despite being an official candidate for EU membership. Ankara expressed disappointment at a "missed opportunity". Media reaction to the perceived snub was sharper.
"In the 1990s, the EU was a giant organisation governed by prominent leaders," said leading columnist Mehmet Ali Birand. "Today it has become a fat midget that lacks perspective and is governed by small-thinkers."

Disillusion with the EU has deepened since Brussels part-suspended talks in December after a row over Cyprus. The hostility, as seen from Ankara, of French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has poisoned the pot further.

But anger and frustration is slowly giving way to a new, more assertive idea: that perhaps Turkey does not really need Europe after all ... - ... and the EU will come to regret its insultingly complacent chauvinism as Turkey goes its own way.

"Europeans underestimate the importance and influence of Turkey," said Fuat Keyman, professor of international relations at Istanbul's Koc university. "If they are serious about the future of Europe as a power in global affairs, they need to change their thinking."

..snip..

...The "reformed Islamist" government in Ankara is also cultivating the Arab and Muslim world. It signalled a new strategic relationship with Egypt this week. It sent peacekeeping troops to Lebanon last year. It talks to Iran when many will not or cannot. Close links to Israel have not prevented the building of ties with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. And despite tensions with the Kurds, Turkey is northern Iraq's main economic partner. Istanbul is the likely venue of next month's Iraq summit...cont'd

http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/story/0,,2042846,00.html