Turkish Forum

Category: USA

Turkey could be America’s most important regional ally, above Iraq, even above Israel, if both sides manage the relationship correctly.

  • America’s top cops in Istanbul during attack

    America’s top cops in Istanbul during attack

    America’s top cops in Istanbul during attack on consulate
    Thursday, July 10, 2008
     
    ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News

      The armed attack in front of the American Consulate in Istanbul took place at a time when high-level U.S. drug enforcement agents were in town to attend the 26th International Drug Enforcement Conference, bringing together top law enforcement officials from 91 countries.

      When the attack took place at around 10:30 a.m. yesterday, Michele Leonhart, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s, or DEA, acting administrator; Scott Burns, deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy; and Mark Destito, the DEA’s Regional Director based in Ankara were briefing a group of journalists at the conference venue in the Conrad Hotel in Beşiktaş district, 10 kilometers from İstinye, where the consulate moved a few years ago.

      The news of the attack, which left three Turkish police officers dead, sent shock waves through the U.S. agents who organized the conference with the Directorate of the Turkish Police.

      During the press briefing, which likely began around when the 15-minute gunfight between the Turkish police and the assailants started, Turkish law enforcement officials were praised for their success in intercepting drug trafficking passing through Turkey.

      “Turkey seized 15 to 16 percent of the heroin coming from Afghanistan. Turkey has done such a good job that drug smugglers have started to take a different route rather than the Balkan route, which is the primary corridor for Afghan-produced drugs to reach Europe. The anchor point for the Balkan Route is Turkey, which remains a major staging area and transportation route for heroin destined for European markets,” said the Interpol Web site. 

      “Turkish authorities need to be recognized because they have put so much pressure on the drug lords that they started to change methods and routes,” said Leonhart.

       Answering a question regarding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, Leonhart recalled President Bush’s decision to use a U.S. drug trafficking law to impose financial sanctions on the PKK.  “This allows us to cut off organizations helping the PKK in their criminal activities,” said Leonhart. 

      Scott Burns from the White House said those using drugs are funding terrorism.

  • Al-Qaeda might be behind Istanbul attack

    Al-Qaeda might be behind Istanbul attack

    NTV news channel reported : Turkish police suspect the gunmen behind Wednesday’s attack on a guardpost outside the US embassy in Istanbul might belong to Al-Qaeda. Police had found information linking the gunmen to Afghanistan, leading to suspicions that the attack was inspired by the Al-Qaeda network.

  • REACTIONS – Six dead in attack on U.S. consulate in Istanbul

    REACTIONS – Six dead in attack on U.S. consulate in Istanbul

    Here are the first reactions to the armed attack on U.S. consulate in Istanbul:

    ABDULLAH GUL – TURKISH PRESIDENT

    “Unfortunately, three police officers were martyred in a terrorist attack outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul earlier in the day. I offer my condolences to their families. Turkey will fight against those who masterminded such acts and the mentality behind it till the end. Everybody has already seen that terrorism would not serve anything.”

    TAYYIP ERDOGAN – TURKISH PRIME MINISTER

    “Such betrayed attacks against Turkey’s peace and stability won’t be able to attain their goals thanks to the determination of our security forces.”

    ROSS WILSON – U.S. AMBASSADOR

    “We remain a close friend and ally of Turkey. Well not be deterred in any way by terrorists who are seeking to strike at us or at U.S.-Turkish relations. Our countries stand together in the fight against international terrorism…. We will confront this as we have confronted similar problems in the past.”

    ERIC GREEN – U.S. CONSULATE IN ADANA

    “We are grateful to the Turkish police for the bravery they displayed. We always take the necessary measures for our security, and will continue to do so. We receive great support from the Turkish police, and very happy with our relations with them. I don’t want to speculate. I don’t know which terrorist organization is responsible for the attack.”

    AMADEU ALTAFAJ TARDIO – EUROPEAN COMMISSION SPOKESPERSON

    “We strongly condemned the armed attack outside U.S. Consulate in Istanbul. We share the sorrow of the Turkish authorities and relatives of the policemen who were killed in the attack.”

  • US ambassador says Istanbul attack was terrorism

    US ambassador says Istanbul attack was terrorism

    US Ambassador Ross Wilson told reporters in Ankara :

    “It’s an obvious act of terrorism, This was an attack on an American diplomatic establishment. The persons who lost their lives are Turkish citizens and we are very sad about that.

    We remain a close friend and ally of Turkey. We’ll not be deterred in any way by terrorists who are seeking to strike at us or at US-Turkish relations, our countries stand together in the fight against international terrorism…. We will confront this as we have confronted similar problems in the past.”

  • Six dead in attack outside U.S. consulate in Istanbul

    Six dead in attack outside U.S. consulate in Istanbul

    From the Associated Press
    2:30 AM PDT, July 9, 2008
    ISTANBUL, Turkey — Istanbul’s governor says an armed attack against a police guard post outside the U.S. consulate in Istanbul left three attackers and three policemen dead.

    Gov. Muammer Guler says the attackers’ identities are under investigation.

    A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman says there were no reports of casualties among American consulate employees in Wednesday’s attack.

    The spokeswoman says “at least one assailant opened fire on the Turkish police guard post area near the main entrance to the consulate.” She requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

    Source :

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  • After meetings in Turkey, Foxman says fallout over ‘genocide’ flap is ‘behind us’

    After meetings in Turkey, Foxman says fallout over ‘genocide’ flap is ‘behind us’

    JPost.com » International » Article

    Jul 7, 2008 23:04 | Updated Jul 7, 2008 23:11

    After meetings in Turkey, Foxman says fallout over ‘genocide’ flap is ‘behind us’

    By HERB KEINON

    The controversy and fallout over the Anti-Defamation League’s statement last year that Turkish actions toward Armenians during World War I was “tantamount to genocide” is “behind us,” ADL National Director Abe Foxman said Monday in Jerusalem, where he arrived from Ankara and a series of meetings with Turkey’s leadership.

    Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti Defamation League.
    Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski

    Last August, Foxman – who was in a dispute in the Boston area over the ADL’s position on the Turkey-Armenia issue – infuriated Turkish leaders by issuing the following statement: “We have never negated but have always described the painful events of 1915-1918 perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as massacres and atrocities. On reflection, we have come to share the view of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. (the US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time) that the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide.

    If the word ‘genocide’ had existed then, they would have called it genocide…

    “Having said that, we continue to firmly believe that a congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and may put at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States.”

    The Turks viewed this as a reversal of the organized Jewish community’s position on the issue, and warned that Turkish-Israeli ties could be harmed if the American Jewish organizations did not work – as they had done in the past – to ensure that the US Congress did not pass a resolution characterizing the massacre of Armenians during World War I as genocide.

    The legislation was eventually removed from the table after US President George W. Bush, and numerous former secretaries of state and defense, wrote letters saying that passing the legislation would harm American interests.

    “They were angry,” Foxman said of the Turkish response to the ADL’s statement last year. “But I think today there is an understanding of where we were, and that we were opposed to Congressional legislation, and that we stood very firm that that was not the way to resolve the issue, and that there is nothing cataclysmic about using the ‘genocide’ word.”

    Foxman, who met with President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and other key government figures, said his message was that the Turks should be “proactive” and try to help today’s Armenia as part of an effort to resolve the historic affair.

    “In the conversations I had with all of them I said there is a need to be proactive, that they need to deal with live Armenians, and strengthen the relationship between Turkey and Armenia, and by strengthening the relations today – frontier issues, opening borders – it will place the historical issue in the background and be much easier to deal with,” Foxman said.

    By the same token, Foxman said that the Armenian community in the US should understand that pressure to use “certain words they want us to use is not going to help one Armenian.”

    Rather, Foxman said, one of the ways the American Jewish community can help the Armenians it to “help convince the Turkish government to normalize relations” with Armenia.