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.

  • 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.

  • Iraqi Kurds Out-Lobby Iraqi Arabs In Washington

    Iraqi Kurds Out-Lobby Iraqi Arabs In Washington

    By Andrew Tilghman – July 4, 2008, 2:22PM

    This week, we learned that the White House knew about last year’s deal between Texas-based Hunt Oil and the Kurdish Regional Government.

    Apparently the threat it posed to the fragile negotiations in Baghdad didn’t concern the president as much as he suggested in public.

    The Kurds have made a lot of friends in Washington during the past few years — especially among Republicans.

    It’s a relationship that’s bolstered by aggressive lobbying by the Kurds. The Kurdish Regional Government has 11 active contracts with U.S. lawyers and lobbyists, according to the State Department’s database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The Kurds have been shelling out far more money on K Street than any other group or government in Iraq.

    A key ally for the Kurds is the firm Barbour Griffith Rogers, the lobbying shop founded by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, formerly head of the Republican National Committee. BGR receives $700,000 a year from the Kurdish Regional Government. Their agreement says the firm will “arrange meetings” with U.S. media and government officials.

    The firm has a separate agreement with the Kurdistan Democratic Party for a $262,500 annual fee, according to the FARA database.

    The Kurdish Regional Government also has a deal with the Republican-linked firm Russo, March and Rogers for running a “media campaign” and a “public relations campaign.”

    The Washington Post last year also noted the Kurds efforts to reach out to evangelical Christians.

    In the past year, the Kurds have spent more than $3 million to retain lobbyists and set up a diplomatic office in Washington. They are cultivating grass-roots advocates among supporters of President Bush’s war policy and evangelicals who believe that many key figures in the Bible lived in Kurdistan. And they are seeking to build an emotional bond with ordinary Americans, like those forged by Israel and Taiwan, by running commercials on national cable news channels to assert that even as Iraq teeters toward a full-blown civil war, one corner of the country, at least, has fulfilled the Bush administration’s ambition of a peaceful, democratic, pro-Western beachhead in the Middle East.

    The Kurds are probably watching this year’s campaign very closely.
    Source:
  • “opinion of Azerbaijanis will carefully be considered”

    “opinion of Azerbaijanis will carefully be considered”

    Barack Obama: “I can assure you that opinion of Azerbaijanis will carefully be considered if the issue of Mourad Topalian’s terrorist activity comes before the Senate”

    [ 02 Jul 2008 11:53 ]

    Washington. Husniyya Hasanova–APA. “I can assure you that opinion of Azerbaijanis will carefully be considered if the issue of American Armenian National Committee’s former chairman Mourad Topalian’s terrorist activity comes before the Senate”, said US presidential nominee Barack Obama in his response to the letter of protest of Azerbaijanis living in Illinois.

    Obama represents Illinois in the US Senate. The presidential candidate also noted that he was gratified by the opportunity that the people of Illinois had given him to work on some very challenging issues that would affect the country’s future. This year, the U.S. Senate has considered – or will soon consider – important legislation relating to the President’s surveillance program, consumer protection, energy policy, and next year’s federal budget. “As I have approached these and other issues, I have appreciated the input I have received from Illinoisans like you. While lawmakers and their constituents may hold different perspectives at times, I feel it is particularly important that I hear the views of any Illinois resident, who feels strongly about a particular issue”, said Obama. Former chairman of the American Armenian National Committee arrested for his terrorist activity met after his release with the pro-Armenian Congressman Howard Berman and discussed with him the “Lobbyist issue”. Thousands of Azerbaijanis living in the United States sent letters of protest to all elected bodies of the country, as well as to Senator Barack Obama via US Azerbaijanis Network (USAN). Alongside with Obama, other congressmen have also reacted to the Mourad Topalian’s meeting with the Howard Berman, member of Californian House of Representatives.

  • Stratfor – Is War With Iran Coming?

    Stratfor – Is War With Iran Coming?

    Stratfor

    Geopolitical Diary: A U.S.-Iranian Dance of Diplomacy

    The United States has raised the possibility of opening a diplomatic interests section in Iran. To avoid giving the impression that the idea was an unqualified U.S. position, State Department officials carefully leaked word of an ongoing debate about the plan to the press. But the news was not met with immediate denial by U.S. officials. In fact, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to rule the idea out — instead Rice said she preferred not to comment on internal U.S. deliberations.

    Hours after her statement, the official Iranian news agency said Iran was prepared, in principle, to consider the request if it is officially made by the United States. So, a week after word was leaked to The New York Times of Israeli maneuvers in preparation for a possible air strike on Iran, the Administration has opened a diplomatic door. 

    Currently, American affairs in Iran are handled by the Swiss Embassy, without U.S. diplomats present. Under full diplomatic relations, which this new deal still would not be, the United States would have an embassy and ambassador in Tehran, and the Iranians would have one in Washington. This is a step short of diplomatic recognition. U.S. diplomats would be present in Tehran — and Iranians in Washington — but likely working under the auspices of the Swiss and Pakistani Embassies, which house their respective interest sections presently. The United States has this sort of arrangement with Cuba. It allows diplomatic presence and representation without full recognition.

    Cuba is hardly a model of international warmth for the United States, but the question is trajectory. At the moment, there is no formal diplomatic presence in Iran. There would be if this were to happen. And that would obviously represent a major psychological shift in U.S.-Iranian relations. It is not that the Americans and Iranians don’t talk. Apart from direct meetings in Baghdad, the Iranians have high-level diplomats in New York. There have also been meetings, varying in degrees of formality, in Switzerland and other venues. In fact, the Americans and Iranians talk all the time, directly, indirectly and sometimes it appears in Haiku poetry. The idea that the United States and Iran don’t talk just isn’t true.

    The importance of this offer is not what it would yield, but that it was made. The United States took the first step, even if it did not take it irrevocably and no formal offer was made. The administration is being cautious. The Americans still recall how in 2003 they were embarrassed by the Iranians who rebuffed an offer by the United States to send help and a visit by a high-level U.S. delegation, including the elder George Bush, to the earthquake-ravaged city of Bam.

    Today the United States is not offering diplomatic exchanges. While it said it might offer them, the United States emphasized its division on the subject. U.S. diplomatic translation: “We’d like to exchange diplomats but if you say no, we never asked.” The Iranians quickly replied that if asked, they might agree. Iranian diplomatic translation: “Ask and we’ll say yes.” The speed of the Iranian response is telling. They were not surprised by the request. Their answer was ready. Which means, as one would expect, they were sounded out before.

    So on Friday it appeared that the world was on the verge of war between Israel and Iran, with the United States supporting Israel. By late Monday, the United States was proposing raising the level of diplomatic relations and the Iranians were indicating that they were open to it. In our mind this reinforces the idea that the careful leaking of putative Israeli war games was part of a “bad cop, somewhat better cop” routine, designed to work the Iranians psychologically. They were offered the choice between Israeli air strikes or improving diplomatic relations. The second offer sounded much better than the first.

    Setting aside the purple rhetoric on all sides, we have long believed that the Americans and Iranians were talking and actually working together in Iraq. The massive decline in casualties in Iraq is not simply due to U.S. military operations. The decision by the Iranians to rein in Shiite Iraqi militias had a significant impact on it. Indeed, in our view, the Iraq issue has always been more important to both countries than the nuclear weapon issue, and in Iraq, there has been progress.

    Both governments are urgently concerned with face. Neither wants to appear to be conceding anything to the other. When the Great Satan meets the Axis of Evil, no public compromise is possible. So all compromising is done privately. And that’s what makes this important. The tentative offer is very public and comes from the highest levels of government. It has been acknowledged officially. Now, this is the United States and Iran so anything public can collapse quickly. But the offer itself, no matter how it was couched, is extremely significant as is the response. In many ways we regard this as more significant than the Israeli exercises. 

  • A U.S.-Iranian Dance of Diplomacy – IS WAR COMING?

    A U.S.-Iranian Dance of Diplomacy – IS WAR COMING?

    STRATFOR Geopolitical Diary:

    The United States has raised the possibility of opening a diplomatic interests section in Iran. To avoid giving the impression that the idea was an unqualified U.S. position, State Department officials carefully leaked word of an ongoing debate about the plan to the press. But the news was not met with immediate denial by U.S. officials. In fact, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to rule the idea out — instead Rice said she preferred not to comment on internal U.S. deliberations.

    Hours after her statement, the official Iranian news agency said Iran was prepared, in principle, to consider the request if it is officially made by the United States. So, a week after word was leaked to The New York Times of Israeli maneuvers in preparation for a possible air strike on Iran, the Administration has opened a diplomatic door. 

    Currently, American affairs in Iran are handled by the Swiss Embassy, without U.S. diplomats present. Under full diplomatic relations, which this new deal still would not be, the United States would have an embassy and ambassador in Tehran, and the Iranians would have one in Washington. This is a step short of diplomatic recognition. U.S. diplomats would be present in Tehran — and Iranians in Washington — but likely working under the auspices of the Swiss and Pakistani Embassies, which house their respective interest sections presently. The United States has this sort of arrangement with Cuba. It allows diplomatic presence and representation without full recognition.

    Cuba is hardly a model of international warmth for the United States, but the question is trajectory. At the moment, there is no formal diplomatic presence in Iran. There would be if this were to happen. And that would obviously represent a major psychological shift in U.S.-Iranian relations. It is not that the Americans and Iranians don’t talk. Apart from direct meetings in Baghdad, the Iranians have high-level diplomats in New York. There have also been meetings, varying in degrees of formality, in Switzerland and other venues. In fact, the Americans and Iranians talk all the time, directly, indirectly and sometimes it appears in Haiku poetry. The idea that the United States and Iran don’t talk just isn’t true.

    The importance of this offer is not what it would yield, but that it was made. The United States took the first step, even if it did not take it irrevocably and no formal offer was made. The administration is being cautious. The Americans still recall how in 2003 they were embarrassed by the Iranians who rebuffed an offer by the United States to send help and a visit by a high-level U.S. delegation, including the elder George Bush, to the earthquake-ravaged city of Bam.

    Today the United States is not offering diplomatic exchanges. While it said it might offer them, the United States emphasized its division on the subject. U.S. diplomatic translation: “We’d like to exchange diplomats but if you say no, we never asked.” The Iranians quickly replied that if asked, they might agree. Iranian diplomatic translation: “Ask and we’ll say yes.” The speed of the Iranian response is telling. They were not surprised by the request. Their answer was ready. Which means, as one would expect, they were sounded out before.

    So on Friday it appeared that the world was on the verge of war between Israel and Iran, with the United States supporting Israel. By late Monday, the United States was proposing raising the level of diplomatic relations and the Iranians were indicating that they were open to it. In our mind this reinforces the idea that the careful leaking of putative Israeli war games was part of a “bad cop, somewhat better cop” routine, designed to work the Iranians psychologically. They were offered the choice between Israeli air strikes or improving diplomatic relations. The second offer sounded much better than the first.

    Setting aside the purple rhetoric on all sides, we have long believed that the Americans and Iranians were talking and actually working together in Iraq. The massive decline in casualties in Iraq is not simply due to U.S. military operations. The decision by the Iranians to rein in Shiite Iraqi militias had a significant impact on it. Indeed, in our view, the Iraq issue has always been more important to both countries than the nuclear weapon issue, and in Iraq, there has been progress.

    Both governments are urgently concerned with face. Neither wants to appear to be conceding anything to the other. When the Great Satan meets the Axis of Evil, no public compromise is possible. So all compromising is done privately. And that’s what makes this important. The tentative offer is very public and comes from the highest levels of government. It has been acknowledged officially. Now, this is the United States and Iran so anything public can collapse quickly. But the offer itself, no matter how it was couched, is extremely significant as is the response. In many ways we regard this as more significant than the Israeli exercises. 

  • Turkish-American Relations

    Turkish-American Relations

    Turkish-American Relations

    Reports

     

    Title:  Turkey Brief: The U.S. – Turkey Relations
    Date: March 2008
    Author: DEIK/TAIK
    Length: 157 pages
    Format: Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf)
    Content Summary: Turkey has been rapidly integrating into the global economy and has become an appealing country for investment in the process of integration into the European Union. In the past 5 years, overage annual growth rate has been 7 percent in Turkey which is result of production, investment and export activities of private sector. Turkey has the most dynamic and most integrated private sector of the Balkans, Middle East, South Africa and Central Asia. Therefore, it is seen as a leader and taken as an economic model in these regions. The foreign trade volume of Turkey reached to 277 billion US Dollars in 2007. Turkey by itself exports 65% of the industrial materials of the Middle East and North Africa. The industrial materials constitute 65% of Turkish export commodities, whereas 10% are technological products. Turkey is the 6th biggest trade partner of European Union. The competitive markets such as OECD, EU and USA account for 65% of Turkey’s total export.

    This is an indepth report covering Turkey’s Economic Outlook including current performance, the country’s structural transformation, EU prospects and IMF relations; Commercial Relations, legal framework, platforms for business, bilateral trade and other relevant issues; Defense Relations; Business Prospects including existing opportunties by sector, and relevant investment issues; as well as a list of further resources.

    Title:  Turkish- American Economic Relations: How do design a private-sector based approach?
    Date: February 2007
    Author: TEPAV
    Length: 15 pages
    Format: Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf)
    Content Summary: This is presentation that summarizes the ways in which Turkey and the US can work together for mobilizing private sectors capacity.

    Title: Turkey’s Trade Development Strategy Towards the Americas
    Date: August 2006
    Validity: December 2008
    Author: The Undersecretariat for Foreign Trade
    Length: 7 pages
    Format: Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf)
    Content Summary: Turkey has diversified its export markets with the help of new strategies launched since 2000. Turkey has been making considerable efforts in order to increase its exports towards new and alternative markets.