Soap-Opera Week for Turkey-U.S. Relations Underlines Partnership’s Strength

AP/Charles Dharapak

President Barack Obama talks with Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a family photo at the G20 Summit in Cannes, France, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011.

ISTANBUL—This week may have started a little uncomfortably for Turkey-U.S. relations, but it ended with something akin to a diplomatic love-in.

Rewind to Monday, and Texas governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry was causing outrage across Turkey, claiming the country was ruled by “what many perceive to be Islamic terrorists,” and suggesting it should be booted out of NATO.

By Thursday, however, Mr. Perry had withdrawn from the race for the Republican nomination and on Friday President Barack Obama named Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as one of five leaders with which he’d formed “a bond of trust.”

Turkish media, which had reacted furiously to Governor Perry’s remarks, rejoiced when he announced on that he was suspending his bid, gleefully suggesting that the stumble on Turkey had killed his campaign.

“Being against Turkey didn’t work out so well,” quipped Turkish TV channel NTV. “Governor Perry, who is illiterate about Turkey, has thrown in the towel early,” said tub-thumping Turkish daily Sabah.

That gloating was bolstered on Friday with news that President Obama had lauded his relationship with Prime Minister Erdogan in an interview with Time Magazine.

In an interview with Time’s Editor-at-Large Fareed Zakaria, Mr. Obama named Turkish PM Erdogan alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and British Prime Minister David Cameron among leaders that he was able to forge “bonds of trust.”

“I think that if you ask them, Angela Merkel or Prime Minister Singh or President Lee or Prime Minister Erdogan or David Cameron would say, we have a lot of trust and confidence in the President,” Time quotes the U.S. president as saying. “That’s part of the reason we’ve been able to forge these close working relationships and gotten a whole bunch of stuff done.”

The president’s strong backing of Ankara capped a whirlwind week for Turkish-U.S. relations that at times resembled soap-opera rather than diplomacy. Analysts say Washington’s move to immediately to condemn Mr. Perry’s remarks and stress the importance of the alliance with Ankara underlines how the partnership has been bolstered in recent months by Turkey’s strong backing of pro-democracy movements during Arab Spring uprisings.

Turkish and U.S. diplomats say they cannot remember a time when cooperation between Ankara and Washington was closer, citing that President Barack Obama called Turkey’s prime minister more than any other leader except Britain’s prime minister in 2011.

Prime Minister Erdogan certainly seemed confident on Friday that the relationship was strong, using Governor Perry’s comments to jibe at Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

“What’s the difference between Rick Perry, who makes ignorant statements about Turkey, and the chairman of our main opposition party? One lives in Texas and one lives in Ankara,” Mr. Erdogan said.

via Soap-Opera Week for Turkey-U.S. Relations Underlines Partnership’s Strength – Emerging Europe Real Time – WSJ.