At the Pentagon yesterday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta met with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak. According to a spokesman, Panetta stressed “America’s continued commitment to ensuring Israel’s qualitative military edge” in particular. The SecDef is expected to travel to the region “in the near future” to meet with Barak again in what will be the pair’s third meeting since Panetta took office.
The sitdown came as tensions continue to rise in Israel’s neighborhood. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, yesterday and explained Washington’s concern about Israel and Turkey’s strained relations. She called on Ankara to mend its relationship with Israel. President Obama will meet today with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The UN General Assembly opens tomorrow in New York, and later in the week the Palestinians are expected to make a bid for statehood in the Security Council.
Clinton also spoke at a pre-General Assembly event at the UN about women in politics. Along with Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff, Clinton called for greater equality for women in the political sphere. She tried to bring some levity to the room, quipping, “As someone who tried to be a president, it’s very encouraging to see those who actually ended up as a president.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is meanwhile denying reports in Ron Suskind’s new book, Confidence Men, that he ignored a request from President Obama to consider dissolving Citigroup. “I lived the original, and the reality I lived, we all lived together, bears no relation to the sad little stories I heard reported from that book,” Geithner said. White House spokesman Jay Carney cautioned that the book gets many facts wrong. Neither has read the book.
via Talking to Turkey | The National Interest Blog.
SECRETARY OF STATE Hillary Rodham Clinton has had a tendency to stumble on the subject of human rights, and one of her more notable slips came during her first visit as secretary to Turkey, in March 2009. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has triumphed repeatedly in free and fair elections but has become increasingly intolerant of domestic opponents, complained to Ms. Clinton about a State Department human rights report that cited his attacks on Turkish media. When Ms. Clinton was asked about her response, she played down the report, apologized for Mr. Erdogan (“no politician ever likes the press criticizing them”) and claimed that “Turkey has made tremendous progress in freedom of speech and freedom of religion and human rights.”
As we pointed out at the time, just the opposite was true: Turkey was moving in the wrong direction on press and religious freedom. Since then the problem has steadily worsened. Dozens of Turkish journalists are imprisoned, including a few who have never been charged with a crime. These include Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, prominent investigative reporters critical of the government who were arrested in March and have yet to be told what laws they allegedly broke.
It was therefore heartening to hear Ms. Clinton, on another visit to Turkey last weekend, speak up forcefully for press freedom. “This is an area that I am concerned about with recent actions in Turkey,” she said when she was asked about it at a town hall meeting. “I do not think it’s necessary or in Turkey’s interest to be cracking down on journalists and bloggers and the Internet. . . . So I would, if I were in the Turkish government . . . be standing up for freedom of expression and freedom of journalism and freedom of bloggers and freedom of the Internet.”
Ms. Clinton’s comments, which drew grateful applause from her audience, were particularly significant because the Obama administration is engaged with Turkey on a host of sensitive issues. The two governments are trying to cooperate on Libya, Syria, Iran, Israeli-Palestinian relations and U.S. plans for European missile defense. In almost every instance, the United States needs Turkey’s help. Given Mr. Erdogan’s prickliness, it would be easy to conclude that the issue of media freedom should be set aside or discussed only in private.
Instead Ms. Clinton demonstrated that it is possible for a secretary of state to speak frankly and publicly about human rights while still doing business with an important government. To be sure, gratuitous scoldings of allies can be counterproductive, but public statements on matters such as press freedom are critical, because they send a message to the broader society about U.S. values and often encourage citizens to speak up.
“I’ve raised this before. I will certainly be raising it again,” Ms. Clinton said of the Turkish media issue. “But let me just say that I think it’s very important for citizens like yourself to raise it.” If Turkey’s beleaguered journalists get a little more public support in coming months — and we bet they will — they will have the secretary of state to thank.
via Hillary Clinton’s welcome words on human rights in Turkey – The Washington Post.
Posted By Josh Rogin Wednesday, July 13, 2011 – 5:05 PM Share
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gets to Istanbul on Friday, senators and their staffs will be watching closely to see if she moves the ball forward on an agreement to station U.S. missile defense radar there, an agreement many Republicans oppose.
“We write with concern over recent reports that the administration may be nearing completion of a bilateral agreement with the Turkish Government to base a U.S. AN/TPY-2 (X-Band) radar in Turkey,” wrote Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) in a July 12 letter to Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta obtained by The Cable.
The senators want the radar to be based in either Georgia or Azerbaijan, which they argue are better locations for defending against a missile attack from Iran. But more broadly, they are concerned that Ankara will place a number of onerous restrictions on the radar, such as demanding that no data be shared with Israel. The senators have also accused Turkey of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, which they said calls into question their reliability as a partner in organizing a missile defense system aimed at Tehran.
In a May 12 meeting with Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller, a senior Missile Defense Agency representative told the senators that “a forward-deployed X-Band radar in either Georgia or Armenia would have significant advantages for the missile defense of the United States,” the senator wrote.
The senators wrote a May 16 letter to Miller asking for a complete analysis of alternative sites, but they said that they have yet to receive any response.
Kyl and Kirk also suggested that they will attempt to thwart any missile defense agreement with Turkey unless the Turks agree to share data with Israel, stop violating Iran sanctions laws, and keep the system under the control of U.S. personnel.
For both the Obama administration and the George W. Bush administration preceding it, international missile defense deployment has always been based on both security and diplomatic considerations. The Bush administration plan to place missile defense infrastructure in Poland and the Czech Republic was a key aspect of strengthening relationships with those two countries, until the Obama administration scuttled it.
A senior GOP Senate aide explained the insider rationale to The Cable.
“Secretary Clinton knows the Congress well and she knows that support for a radar in Turkey will quickly collapse on both sides of the aisle if the Turks get any control over its operational activity or veto rights over sharing data with Israel,” the aide said. “Given Turkey’s strained relationship with Israel and non-compliance with U.S. sanctions against Iran, there’s a strong feeling that if the Turks have any operational control over the radar we can be sure it will be turned off the day we need it most.”
via Senators to Clinton: Don’t sign Turkish missile defense agreement | The Cable.
Clinton’s round-the-world tour is likely only to highlight how impotent the United States has become
Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton's tour 'will be notable as much for what is not said as what is'. Photograph: Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images
Hillary Clinton’s 11-day round-the-world tour is remarkable even by the high-flying standards of US secretaries of state. It’s certain to make headlines around the globe. But paradoxically, this diplomatic tour de force may unintentionally highlight the apparently inexorable decline of American power and influence. It will be notable as much for what is not said as what is.
Clinton’s first stop is in Istanbul on Friday, where she will join European and other foreign ministers in the international contact group co-ordinating the Nato-led intervention in Libya. The official line, promulgated by France, is that pressure on Muammar Gaddafi’s embattled regime in Tripoli is telling, and that the outlines of a negotiated settlement are beginning to emerge.
While that assessment will be publicly upheld in Istanbul, behind the scenes Clinton may hear well-rehearsed complaints that the US is not doing enough, militarily and in other ways, to back up its Nato partners. Despite claims that Gaddafi is close to throwing in the towel, there is as yet no concrete sign that he will stand down – amid widening differences in approach between the US and Britain, France, Italy and Russia. To confuse matters further, Turkey will propose yet another “roadmap” to end the conflict.
Clinton could give the interventionists a boost were she to announce US recognition of the rebel national council in Benghazi as Libya’s government and release more than $30bn in regime funds frozen in US banks. But Washington, worried in part about encouraging Islamist extremists, has so far hedged its bets.
Clinton’s Turkish leg will include bilateral talks on Syria, Iran and the Israel-Palestine conflict. All three issues speak to American impotence, not leadership. In Damascus, Bashar al-Assad continues to ignore ever more shrill American criticism of the nationwide security crackdown. Clinton said this week that the Syrian president had forfeited the legitimacy to rule. But while China and Russia afford him diplomatic cover, and Barack Obama remains opposed to direct intervention, there is little more the US can do other than complain.
Iran’s recent decision to dramatically accelerate its suspect uranium enrichment programme gives the lie to claims that the Tehran regime is retreating under the US-led sanctions campaign. And with the Obama administration’s peace plan torpedoed by Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, Clinton can have little to say on Palestine. The US is now reduced to the role of disgruntled spectator as a UN vote to recognise Palestinian statehood draws near.
Clinton’s visit to financially stricken Athens on Sunday is unlikely to be of any practical assistance. The US is one of the few countries with a bigger national debt than Greece. Like the Greeks, Americans seem incapable of achieving a consensus on how to address it. And it is arguably US-patented transnational market capitalism that created the whole sorry mess in the first place.
The next stop on Clinton’s grand tour – India – will take her into the sphere of superpower rivalries. The secretary of state will say a lot about strengthening ties through strategic dialogue and commercial collaboration. What will not be said is that the US increasingly views Delhi as a vital counterweight to a steadily more aggressive China.
For this reason Clinton cannot be expected to dwell, for example, on India’s de facto support for the Burmese dictatorship, its unhelpful stance on Kashmir and its machinations in Afghanistan. Counter-terrorism will be high on the agenda following Wednesday’s bombings in Mumbai. In this context, Clinton will do well to avoid David Cameron’s mistake of indulging in gratuitous Pakistan-bashing on Indian soil.
Clinton’s sojourn will be rounded off in south-east and east Asia, where the greatest challenges to American power are rising. A security conference in Bali is certain to touch on a host of territorial disputes between China and its neighbours, with another confrontation involving Vietnam reported only today. Clinton made waves last year when she warned China, in effect, to stop trying to fence off the South China Sea. Her words angered Beijing but did not alter its behaviour, which, if anything, has grown more belligerent. Much the same might be said of the effect of American strictures on North Korea.
Clinton will finish her global circumnavigation in Hong Kong, where she is due to make a speech decrying protectionism. Given America’s own protectionist record, and its ever greater reliance on Chinese capital and Chinese imports, this piece of doorstep impudence is more likely to elicit smiles than snarls in Beijing. When you’re winning, you can afford to laugh.
via Hillary Clinton circumnavigates a sphere of diminishing US influence | Simon Tisdall | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to visit Turkey next week at the invitation by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Clinton is to attend the meeting of the Libya Contact Group in Turkey’s largest city of Istanbul on July 15 and hold talks with Turkish officials on that day and July 16, the statement said, adding Clinton would be received by Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Turkey and the United States are two friends and allies. Talks continue between the two countries at all levels within the frame of a model partnership. During Clinton’s visit to Turkey, bilateral relations and current global and regional issues will be discussed and views be exchanged,” the statement said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is warning Syria to withdraw troops now massing near its border with Turkey, saying their presence is worsening an already bad situation for refugees and risks sparking border clashes with the Turks.
Clinton told reporters at the State Department on Thursday that the U.S. saw the situation as volatile and “very worrisome” and that the Syria military should immediately end attacks and provocations in the region. She said the buildup of soldiers just 500 yards from the Turkish border was another sign of the Syrian government’s intent to repress its own people.
Earlier Thursday, Syrian troops pushed to the Turkish border in their sweep against a 3-month-old pro-democracy movement, sending panicked refugees, including children, rushing across the frontier to safe havens in Turkey.
via Clinton warns of Syria-Turkey border clashes – KansasCity.com.
