Placement of Turkish flag in your piece on 9/11, its dvd cover, posters, and other media items, if not based on ignorance or disinformation, can only reflect your prejudice against Turkey and Turks.
Please remove the Turkish flag from your artwork. Turkey or Turks have nothing to do with El Qaeda or other terrorist organizations who deliberatelly misuse Islam as a cover for their crimes against humanity.
Truth should be plain enough to make an impact on decent people, without having to rely on tools of prejudice and hate towards Turks, that unfortunately seems to still be cultuivated in some Christian circles.
Can Iran, Turkey, and the United States Become Allies?
By Mustafa Akyol
September/October 2010
AUTHOR Stephen Kinzer PUBLISHER Times Books YEAR 2010 PAGES 288 pp. ISBN 0805091270
In Reset, Stephen Kinzer argues that the United States should partner with Iran and Turkey to promote democracy and combat extremism in the Middle East. Although it is hard to imagine Iran as a friend of Washington, Turkey is ready to play that role.
MUSTAFA AKYOL is a Turkish journalist and the author of the forthcoming book An Islamic Case for Freedom.
Insanity, it is often said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. When it comes to the Middle East, writes Stephen Kinzer, a veteran foreign correspondent, Washington has been doing just that. Hence, in Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future, he proposes a radical new course for the United States in the region. The United States, he argues, needs to partner with Iran and Turkey to create a “powerful triangle” whose activities would promote a culture of democracy and combat extremism.
This is, of course, a counterintuitive argument. At the moment, Iran, with its radical ideology and burgeoning nuclear program, is one of Washington’s biggest headaches. And although Turkey is a longtime U.S. ally, the U.S.-Turkish relationship has recently been tested. Last June, for example, Turkey’s representative on the UN Security Council voted against U.S.-backed sanctions on Iran. These days, most of Washington is asking, “Who lost Turkey?” rather than envisioning more extensive cooperation with it.
Yet Kinzer’s U.S.-Iranian-Turkish alliance is a long-term project, and the idea has ample grounding in the modern history of the region. Unlike other Muslim countries there, Kinzer shows, Iran and Turkey have at least a century’s worth of experience struggling for political freedom, during which they “developed an understanding of democracy, and a longing for it.” This means that they share some fundamental values with the United States. Moreover, Iran and Turkey have educated middle classes — bases for strong civil societies. The two countries even share strategic goals with the United States: a desire to see Iraq and Afghanistan stabilized and radical Sunni movements such as al Qaeda suppressed.
CARROTS ARE FOR DONKEYS
Still, Kinzer’s power triangle could not emerge in today’s world. Iran, he writes, “would have to change dramatically” and turn into a democracy before such an alliance could be formed. How that would happen — a truly daunting question — is unclear, but in the meantime, Kinzer proposes a twofold strategy: engage with the current regime as effectively as possible and wait for the day when the country’s democratically minded (and, as he calls them, “reliably pro-American”) masses make their way to power.
Engagement, of course, is already the Obama administration’s stated policy, but Kinzer urges Washington to be bolder, that is, to launch “direct, bilateral, comprehensive, and unconditional negotiations” with Tehran. Nixon’s diplomatic breakthrough with communist China, he reminds readers, came at a time when Beijing was supplying weapons to North Vietnamese soldiers, who were using them to kill Americans. “Nixon did not make good behavior a condition of negotiation,” Kinzer notes. “He recognized that diplomacy works in precisely the opposite way. Agreement comes first; changes in behavior follow.”
Kinzer also criticizes the tone of current U.S. diplomacy, which does not give the Iranians what he thinks they are really looking for: “respect, dignity, a restoration of lost pride.” This makes a so-called carrot-and-stick approach to Tehran counterproductive. That “may be appropriate for donkeys,” Kinzer writes, “but not for dealing with a nation ten times older than [the United States].” The key to turning Iran from foe to friend is not to make Iran’s regime feel more threatened; it is to make it feel more secure.
Even then, there are many imponderables about Iran, and the current regime may be unwilling to partner with the United States no matter the tone of U.S. overtures. Kinzer’s only advice here is for the United States to avoid being emotional, “do nothing that will make that partnership more difficult to achieve when conditions are right,” and, if negotiations do begin, make “no concessions to Iran’s regime that weaken Iranians who are persecuted for defending democratic values.” Yet Kinzer leaves unclear how that delicate balance could be maintained and offers little guidance for policymakers looking for a more practical road map.
CLASH WITHIN A CIVILIZATION
The other leg of Kinzer’s proposed triangle, the U.S.-Turkish partnership, is much more realistic, having already been institutionalized by decades of cooperation between the two countries, and deserves closer attention. Although Turkey’s supposed shift away from secularism toward Islamism has raised eyebrows in the West, it should not. In fact, Turkey’s new path may actually increase the benefits of the U.S.-Turkish relationship, as Kinzer passionately argues.
To understand why, one must abandon the standard narrative about Turkey’s recent history. According to that story, Turkey was once the sick man of Europe, trapped in religious obscurantism. Then, Kemal Atatürk came along with westernizing reforms and took the nation on a great secular leap forward. Unfortunately, however, the forces of darkness survived underground and have recently reemerged in the guise of the quasi-religious Justice and Development Party (AKP).
At the heart of this story is a battle between Western enlightenment and obscurantism. But in fact, Turkey’s real dichotomy has always been between its westernizers and its modernizers. Whereas the westernizers, led by Atatürk, sought to remodel Turkey into a fully European nation, emphasizing cultural westernization and secularization, the modernizers called for political and economic reform but insisted on preserving the traditional culture and religion at the same time.
After winning control of the country after World War I, the westernizers imposed a top-down cultural revolution and used their tight grip on power to transform Turkey, in the words of their own witty dictum, “for the people, in spite of the people.” They ordered citizens to wear Western clothing, such as the brimmed hat, and listen to Western music, such as opera, and they disbanded almost all religious institutions. But only a small part of the population embraced these radical changes, convincing the revolutionaries that democracy had to be abandoned in favor of benevolent authoritarianism.
The modernizers, on the other hand, championed democracy and favored reforming Turkey through economic development, calling for free trade and private enterprise. Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, who came to power in 1950 in the country’s first free elections, soon became their icon. He halted the cultural revolution, eased the repression of religion, and presided over an economic boom — affording him three electoral victories in a row.
But his efforts ran afoul of the westernizers, and he was executed in 1961 by a pro-Atatürk junta. In the 1980s, the modernizers’ torch was picked up by Prime Minister (and later President) Turgut Özal, and more recently, it was picked up by the AKP, which has been in power since 2002.
Of course, the AKPs founders, including the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, originally arose from a third force in Turkish politics — Islamism. But over time, they reformed, both out of a sense pragmatism and because of the increasingly liberal outlook of their base, the growing Islamic middle class. And despite their leftover religious rhetoric, the AKP rejects true Islamists’ most basic goal — the creation of an Islamic state.
The differences between the westernizers and the modernizers have influenced Turkish foreign policy. The modernizers have never shared the westernizers’ ideological distaste for the East and began opening up to it after the Cold War. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union dominated the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, leaving Turkey feeling isolated and surrounded by enemies. When the Soviet Union fell, then President Özal began to visit many Arab and Central Asian capitals and set up business exchanges. At the same time, he maintained close ties with the United States and other NATO allies.
After Özal’s death, in 1993, Turkey suffered a “lost decade” of unstable coalition governments; an indirect coup, when the prime minister resigned due to military pressure; and two terrible economic crises. The country was left with very little capacity for, or interest in, independent activity abroad. That changed in 2002, when the AKP came to power and immediately faced a fateful decision: whether to allow U.S. troops to use Turkish territory to invade Iraq. Caught between a crucial ally and an unpopular war, the AKP government somewhat hesitantly favored opening Turkish borders to the troops. But Turkey’s AKP-majority parliament, to the surprise of the United States and many others, said no.
Although Ankara was at first unsure whether it had done the right thing, an almost nationwide consensus soon emerged that the war in Iraq was disastrous and Turkey had done well to stay out of it. For its refusal to support the invasion of Iraq, Turkey enjoyed rising popularity across the Middle East, boosting not only the prestige of Turkey’s diplomats there but also the economic fortunes of its businesspeople, who were suddenly much more attractive partners to those in the Middle East.
The country’s recent vote against UN sanctions on Iran should be seen in this context. The Turks have learned that they can gain — both in standing and economically — by declining to join the United States when it acts in ways that seem needlessly aggressive. Although Turkey has many of the same foreign policy goals as the United States, it prefers to achieve them through the kind of soft power it displayed recently in its dealings with Iran. In May, Brazil and Turkey convinced Iran to sign a nuclear-exchange deal similar to the ultimately unsuccessful one the United States had helped broker six months before. Rather than praising the deal, Washington balked and pressed for sanctions anyway. This move surprised Erdogan, who believed that U.S. President Barack Obama had written him and Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in April to ask them to negotiate just such an agreement. Although the Obama administration claims that the Turks misinterpreted the letter, many in Turkey nonetheless believe that whereas Ankara has remained true to Obama’s initial calls for peaceful engagement, Obama has given in to the U.S. Congress’ more hawkish tone.
BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS
Far from being a fleeting creation of the AKP, as some assume, this new, independent-minded Turkey is here to stay. For the rise of the AKP is much more a result of changes in Turkish society than their cause. The new Muslim entrepreneurial middle class, which emerged thanks to Özal’s free-market revolution of the 1980s, already outnumbers and economically outperforms the staunchly secular old elite. It is this class that makes up the modernizers’ base, and its vision is likely to guide Turkey in the years to come.
These Turkish modernizers are neither socialists like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, who wants to put an end to the capitalist system, nor radical Islamists in the same vein as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who wants to destroy Israel. In fact, for several years, Erdogan tried to enhance Turkey’s diplomatic ties with Israel, denouncing anti-Semitism, visiting Tel Aviv, welcoming Israeli companies to do business in Turkey, hosting Israeli President Shimon Peres, and initiating indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria. The rift came only at the end of 2008, when Israel launched catastrophic strikes against Gaza — which was seen as an insult to Erdogan, who had hosted then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for peace talks only four days before the attack. The rift widened in June after Israel’s lethal raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship.
As Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has often articulated, what the AKP seeks is a peaceful and prosperous Middle East integrated through trade and investment. These goals are very much in line with those of the United States. The difference is one of style, and Turkey will continue to diverge from the United States if Washington tries to realize its vision with hard power instead of the soft power that Ankara wields.
Whether this is good or bad news for the United States depends on how one envisions U.S. foreign policy objectives. Should the United States seek as many loyal, unquestioning allies as possible in a perpetual hard-power game? Or can it rely on independent, diplomatically inclined partners to promote security and prosperity in an increasingly complex world?
If it seeks the latter, this new Turkey will be an asset, as Kinzer notes. The fact that Turkey “has escaped from America’s orbit,” he writes, has given Turkey prestige that will be beneficial to both it and the United States. Now, “Turkey can go places, engage partners, and make deals that America cannot.”
FROM ZERO TO HERO
Beyond diplomacy, Turkey’s most valuable contribution to the troubled region might well be its synthesis of Islam, democracy, and capitalism. For years, the West assumed that westernizer-ruled Turkey offered just that model. But as Kinzer explains, “For most of Turkey’s modern history, the Muslim world has seen [the country] as an apostate,” having “no religious legitimacy” and acting “as Washington’s lackey.” Now, by becoming more Muslim, modern, and independent, Turkey has finally become appealing to Arabs. Indeed, a staggering 75 percent of those surveyed in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, and Syria named Turkey as a model for the synthesis of Islam and democracy in a recent survey by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, a liberal Turkish think tank.
No wonder Turkish products have become popular in the Middle East in recent years and Arab tourists have flooded Istanbul. Although they are banned by some conservative clerics, Turkish soap operas are hits on Arab television stations, and they promote a more flexible and individualistic form of Muslim culture. Turkish entrepreneurs, meanwhile, have invested billions in Middle Eastern countries. And the Sufi-inspired Gülen Movement, led by Fethullah Gülen, a popular Turkish cleric, has opened over 1,000 schools from Asia to Africa, with the goal of creating a generation of students well versed in the secular sciences and a distinctively Turkish form of Islam.
All this should be refreshing, not alarming. Turkish Islam has always been more flexible than other forms of the faith, such as Saudi Wahhabism. In the past few decades, moreover, it has become even more liberal as the Turkish middle class has grown more individualistic and welcoming of reformist theology. One Turkish commentator recently observed in his column in the Islamic daily newspaperYeni Safak that the young generation wants to hear about “the Qur’an and freedom,” rather than “the Qur’an and obedience.”
Of course, Turkey is far from perfect. The country’s two-century-long struggle to become a modern, democratic nation is hardly complete. The AKP has contributed notably to the effort, through economic and political reforms that serve not only conservative Muslims but also non-Muslim minorities, but there is still much to do. Erdogan faces an election next year and will need to show himself to be more tolerant of dissent to win it. He needs to be careful to avoid appearing too close to Iran, Hamas, or other Islamists at the risk of damaging Turkey’s credibility in the West — a balance that President Abdullah Gül, a former AKP foreign minister, has been more diligent in tending to. Meanwhile, the whole country must work to solve its most fatal domestic problem: the 25-year-long armed conflict with Kurdish nationalists. Since a military solution has proved unsuccessful, engagement along the lines of the British with the Irish Republican Army may now be the only option, but so far, the AKP’s initiatives have been too timid and the opposition’s stance too unhelpful.
In his book, Kinzer points to such domestic problems and reminds the reader that Turkey needs to develop further before it can become an influential global actor. But he says that the United States also needs to change by becoming more modest on the global stage. Americans, he suggests, need to realize that “they lack some of the historical and cultural tools necessary to navigate effectively through the Middle East and surrounding regions.” If they accept this truth and admit they need help, “Turkey becomes America’s next best friend.”
Turkey is ready to play that role, so this part of Kinzer’s power triangle is quite feasible. But the potential for Iran to complete it is, for now, constrained by powerful political obstacles. For, as Kinzer puts it, “the flame of freedom still burns in Iran — although, unlike in Turkey, it is not allowed to burn in public.”
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, explains the charges against the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian organization.
Last updated (GMT/UTC): 14.10.2010 07:58
By Nikola Krastev
NEW YORK — U.S. law enforcement authorities have announced charges against 44 members of an Armenian-American criminal syndicate in connection with the operation of more than 100 medical clinics that filed some $100 million in fake claims to a government health insurance program
The lead prosecutor in the case, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, said the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian organization — which is named after its two alleged leaders, 35-year-old Davit Mirzoyan and 36-year-old Robert Terdjanian — employed threats, intimidation, and violence and operated in a classical mafia style:
“The reach of this organization stretches clear across the country and well beyond our shores. And so in terms of profitability, geographic scope, and sheer ambition this emerging international organized crime syndicate would be the envy of any traditional mafia family,” Bharara said.
Bharara said that the Armenian-American criminal group operated principally out of Los Angeles and New York but had offshoots in 25 states involved in extortion, credit card fraud, identity theft, immigration fraud, and even distribution of contraband cigarettes and stolen Viagra.
The indictment says most members of the organization were Armenian nationals or immigrants who maintained substantial ties to Armenia. In addition to regularly traveling there, they had criminal connections, transferred criminal proceeds to the country, and bought real estate and businesses with money from their illegal profits.
Armenian national Armen Kazarian, 46, is identified as the principal leader — the so-called “godfather” of the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian organization. The indictment identifies him as “vor v zakone,” or a thief in the law/code — a powerful figure in the criminal underworld of the former Soviet Union.
Kazarian immigrated to the United States in 1996 and has received asylum status despite frequently traveling to Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Prosecutor Bharara said the case is the second time a “vor v zakone” has been charged with federal crimes in the United States but the first time one has been charged with federal racketeering.
“In important respects, though, this organization was a far cry from the classic Cosa Nostra. For one thing, when it comes to making money illegally, this Armenian-American group puts the traditional mafia to shame,” Bharara said.
Lavish Lifestyles
Vaycheslav Ivankov — also known as “Yaponchik,” which means “Little Japanese” — a notorious Russian organized crime figure, was the first “vor v zakone.” He was arrested by the FBI in 1995 on extortion charges.
Ivankov was convicted and served nine years in a U.S. prison before being deported to Russia. He was gunned down in Moscow in October 2009.
Janice Fedarcyk, the assistant director in charge of the FBI office in New York, said that U.S. law enforcement authorities are always on the lookout for the next emerging criminal scheme, no matter where it’s coming from.
“This particular scheme did originate from areas in the former Soviet [Union]. Certainly the vor, the thief in law, has grown of interest to us with the dissolution of the USSR particularly because more information is now available and we are starting to see with the availability of international travel the expansion of some of those criminal schemes over to Europe and the United States,” Fedarcyk said.
In early October, U.S. law enforcement authorities announced the indictment of 73 individuals from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Belarus who they accuse of participating in a complex Internet fraud scheme that targeted the bank accounts of U.S. citizens, businesses, and cities.
Prosecutors in the Armenian case are investigating whether any of the arrested individuals were in the United States illegally.
Bharara said almost all of the indicted individuals are from Armenia but wouldn’t say whether Armenian authorities are helping with the case, but said foreign authorities are usually willing to cooperate with the United States.
The indictment almost reads like a thriller, with lurid details of the criminal defrauding enterprise, the members’ posh lifestyles, and their expensive cars:
“The indictments in this case talk about phantom doctors, fancy cars, money laundering through [Las] Vegas casino chips, threats to disembowel rivals and more,” Bharara said.
“That’s the kind of material that makes a great movie. But this is no movie. It is very real and we are using every resource at our disposal and every tool we can find to prosecute those alleged international gangsters.”
New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the criminals conducted their business with remarkable efficiency.
“And even though it was a very lavish fraudulent scheme, it’s amazing how they were able to maintain a low overhead. They actually did an awful lot of their operations out of a very small office over an auto-body shop on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn. And one woman, Galina Vovk was there from early morning to late at night [filling] out all of these [fraudulent claims],” Kelly said.
Galina Vovk is the wife of Robert Terdjanian, one of the principle leaders.
If convicted, the defendants face various sentences up to life imprisonment and up to $500,000 fine.
The office of the Armenian ambassador in Washington D.C., Tatoul Markarian, did not return repeated calls from RFE/RL seeking comment.
Google may have earned plenty of buzz with its announcement last weekend that it has beensecretly testing self-driving cars on California roads. But the mad-scientist military agency that first inspired those auto-bots may still be a step ahead–or rather, above.
On Tuesday, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) officially announced the private sector participants in its Transformer X project to build a Humvee that can take off, fly hundreds of miles, and land with little human input. Military contractors Lockheed Martin and AAI will receive about $3 million each to function as the system integrators for the project, with another $1 million for both Carnegie Mellon University and Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne and $750,000 each for Aurora Flight Services and Metis Design.
The Transformer X (TX) will be designed for depositing and extracting soldiers and supplies in tough-to-reach places without easily accessible roads, taking off from a standstill and flying up to 250 miles with a 1000-pound load. Most science-fictional of all? It won’t necessarily have a human at the controls–or at least not one with any piloting experience.
“Key to the success of this technology is the ability for guidance, navigation and control of the TX to be conducted without a dedicated pilot—increasing flexibility,” reads an agency statement. “It is envisioned that guidance and flight control systems will allow for semi-autonomous flight, permitting a nonpilot to perform [vertical takeoffs and landings], transition into forward flight, and update the flight path in response to changing mission requirements or threats.”
DARPA, after all, is the ultra-forward-thinking Pentagon agency that hosted the Grand Challenge in 2006 and 2007, an autonomous car race across the Mojave desert, as well as the Urban Challenge, a 2008 event that challenged self-driving cars to negotiate a cityscape complete with obstacles and traffic. Sebastian Thrun, Google’s lead researcher for its autonomous autos project, led the Stanford teams that won the 2007 event and placed second in 2008, and several other researchers from those X-Prize style events have joined Google to work for him.
The car-to-plane conversion abilities of the Transition X may be its most achievable element: In fact, it’s practically ready for the consumer market. Aviation Week has reported that AAI’s subcontractors for the DARPA project include Terrafugia, the Woburn, Mass.-based startup that’s also building the Transition, a consumer-targeted flying car planned for sale in 2011. Any customers who shell out $200,000 for that transformable car-plane, unfortunately, will have to drive it themselves.
Barack Obama’s government has delivered a stark public warning against major cuts in the British defence budget, suggesting that they would undermine Nato and strain the Special Relationship.
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Hillary Clinton: 'I think we do have to have an alliance where there is a commitment to the common defence' Photo: AFP/GETTY
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Robert Gates, the secretary of defence, both said they were worried about deep reductions in Britain’s Armed Forces and the consequences for international security.
The unusual public intervention came as talks on the defence budget went down to the wire, with defence chiefs making 11th-hour personal appeals to David Cameron against cuts last night.
The Daily Telegraph disclosed last month that US officials were privately concerned that British defence spending was about to fall below 2 per cent of gross domestic product, the minimum standard expected of Nato members. Mrs Clinton and Mr Gates, America’s two most senior figures on international relations and security, made those fears public in separate remarks.
In a BBC interview to be broadcast today, Mrs Clinton was asked whether defence cuts being made in Europe, and specifically in Britain, worried the US administration.
She replied: “It does. The reason it does is because I think we do have to have an alliance where there is a commitment to the common defence.“
Nato has been the most successful alliance for defensive purposes in the history of the world, I guess, but it has to be maintained. Now each country has to be able to make its appropriate contributions.”
Mr Gates attended a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels yesterday, where he delivered his own warning. “My worry is that the more our allies cut their capabilities, the more people will look to the US to cover whatever gaps are created,” he told reporters on his flight to Belgium. “At a time when we are facing stringencies of our own, that’s a concern for me.”
Later, he told the Nato meeting: “As nations deal with their economic problems, we must guard against the hollowing out of alliance military capability by spending reductions that cut too far into muscle.”
The American intervention will increase tensions within Whitehall over the scale of the defence cuts to be announced next week.
Britain is one of a handful of European Nato members that meets the 2 per cent standard. Officials believe that defence spending could fall as low as 1.7 per cent of GDP.
George Osborne, the Chancellor, is pressing for a 10 per cent cut in the defence budget, which Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, is resisting fiercely. Sources said the two sides were discussing a “midpoint” compromise of around 6 per cent. That would represent a political victory for Dr Fox but would still leave the Services facing painful losses.
The Royal Navy could lose its amphibious landing capability, meaning Britain would be unable to mount another campaign like that in the Falklands. The future of Harrier and Tornado jets also hangs in the balance. Navy insiders said cutting the Harriers would mean that Britain’s first new aircraft carrier would enter service in 2016 with no British aircraft to fly from it.
The heads of the Navy, Army and RAF went to No 10 last night for private meetings with the Prime Minister to warn of the “serious consequences” of the Treasury plan.
“The PM should be aware that the cuts the Treasury is looking for are ridiculous,” said a senior military source. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, tried to play down US fears, insisting: “We will remain a very serious country in defence matters.”
The National Audit Office today will disclose that the “black hole” in the order book for defence equipment grew by £3.3 billion in Labour’s final year in office. The decision to delay construction work on the new carriers will add £650 million to their final cost, taking the eventual bill to £5.9 billion, the watchdog will say.
A £2.7 billion increase in the cost of Typhoon jets was caused by a decision to buy 16 additional aircraft, in order to meet international obligations to Germany, Italy and Spain.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Speak at Annual Conference
We are pleased to announce that U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, is the latest addition to the list of confirmed speakers for the 29th Annual Conference on U.S, – Turkey Relations, October 17-20, 2010 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Secretary Gates will join Turkey’s Minister of National Defense, Vecdi Gonul, as luncheon speakers on Monday, October 18.
Throughout the two- day Conference, participants will hear from such government and business leaders as Turkey’s State Minister and Minister for Foreign Trade, Zafer Caglayan; U.S. National Security Advisor, General James Jones; the President and Chairman of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, Fred Hochberg; the Deputy Secretary of Energy, Dan Poneman; Turkey’s Undersecretary for National Defense, Murad Bayar; TOBB President, Rifat Hisarciklioglu; and the Chairman of Koc Holding, Mustafa Koc.
Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Economy, Ali Babacan, is expected to be the opening Keynote speaker for the Conference on October 18.
It’s not too late to make arrangements to attend. On-site registration will open at 3:00pm Sunday, October 17 and at 7:30 am, October 18 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The agenda will include working sessions on trade and investment, defense industry cooperation and procurement, energy, construction and infrastructure, banking and finance, agri-business and much more.
Plan to join us in Washington, D.C. for the 29th Annual Conference on U.S. – Turkey Relations.
Dear Editor,
