| Ergün Kirlikovali | September 7th 2009 |
Irvine CA
Responding to “What’s Behind Behind Persistent Anti-Americanism in Turkey?” by Soner Cagaptay and Yurter Ozcan in your August 31st 2009 edition (see August 31, 2009 Society), at least some of the reasons behind seemingly persistent Anti-Americanism in Turkey are:
1) Continuing reliance of the Congress and even the Presidency on anti-Turkish lobbies to define United States-Turkey relations;
2) Ceaseless defamation of Turks, Turkey, Turkish culture, heritage, and history in the media due to input received from anti-Turkish biased sources, as in the bogus Armenian genocide case;
3) Insistence on a ridiculous war in Iraq despite strenuous objections from and damage to Turkey;
4) Behind the scenes wheeling and dealing with Kurdish terrorists, PKK (though officially always denied);
5) Taking Greek and Greek Cypriots representations and claims at face value when developing approaches in southeastern Europe;
6) Trade quotas (even yesterday’s communist China enjoys more freedom in trade in USA than long time ally, reliable friend and staunch supporter Turkey;
7) Remarkable ignorance and/or even insults when faced with matters Turkish always ending up in awkward apologies.