US SENATOR, CONGRESSMAN PRAISE TIES WITH TURKEY

NTV Television, Turkey
May 28 2007

[News conference by US Senator Benjamin Nelson and Congressman Edward
Whitfield with foreign and domestic correspondents after meeting Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Gul in Ankara;
broadcast in progress – live, in English]

[Nebraska Senator Benjamin Nelson] The relationship between the US and
Turkey goes back many many decades. It is a relationship of friendship
and partnership and I am very pleased with the conversation we had
today with the prime minister and minister Gul.

We’ve got many areas where we are in full agreement. The partnership
and cooperation over the years, we believe that that’s going to
continue into the future. And the prime minister made it very clear
that where we have some differences of opinion, we will continue to
work through those. So I am very pleased that the relationship is as
strong as it is and that we will go into next decade with that kind
of partnership as well. With that ….

[US Kentucky Congressman Edward Whitfield] I am Ed Whitfield of
Kentucky and I might talk about some specific areas that we discussed
with the prime minister. Before I do that, I will say that we had six
members of the House of Representatives and five US senators. And
we discussed particularly, the frustration of the Turkish people
relating to the PKK terrorism – a problem in northern Iraq that is
being exported into Turkey. There was quite a lengthy discussion about
the situation in Iraq – the overall situation in Iraq. There was also
discussion about the Armenian resolution that has been introduced in
the US Congress and if it passed the impact that it would have on the
Turkish people. We also discussed the Turkish effort to be a member
of the European Union and how, particularly, France and Germany appear
to have a bias against the EU membership.

And also, the importance of reunifying the island of Cyprus. So those
were some of the issues that we discussed and it’s my understanding
that some of you may have a question or two.

[Indistict question by unidentified correspondent]

[Whitfield] I cannot speak for the administration but we sent the
letter because we feel like that the US is asking Turkey not to
intervene and yet the Turkish people are suffering deaths because of
PKK terrorism. We feel that the US should take some concrete steps
to deal with this issue. Then, I would say we are not urging Turkey
to take military action.

[Correspondent] Did you talk about the US violation of Turkish border.

[Nelson] We did talk with Turkish officials about the question of
the Iraqi-Turkish border and we would hope that conversations will
be ongoing so that we are able to resolve the best way to deal with
that violation of the Turkish border.

[Whitfield] We were also told that any violation of Turkish airspace
is put upon the military website, that there is not anything unusual
about this particular.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress