ERDOGAN RECEIVES U.S. CONGRESS DELEGATION

Turkish Press
May 30 2007

ANKARA – Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan received on Monday members of
the U.S. Congress Turkey Working Group who are currently in Turkey
to hold a series of talks.

After the talks held at Erdogan`s office at the parliament, co-chairman
of the working group Edward Whitfield and U.S. Senator from Nebraska
Benjamin Nelson held a press conference.

Whitfield stated that Turkish public`s disappointment regarding the
PKK terrorism exported from Iraq, the general situation in Iraq,
the bill introduced to the U.S. Congress regarding the allegations on
so-called Armenian genocide and the prospective effects of such bill in
case of its adoption were the main issues discussed during the talks.

Moreover, Turkey`s EU membership process, France and Germany`s
prejudiced stances against this issue and unification of Cyprus were
also on the agenda of the meeting, Whitfield said.

Upon a question on his opinion regarding the possibility of Turkey`s
waging a cross-border operation to Iraq, Whitfield said that they
thought USA should take some concrete steps on the issue, however, they
did not encourage Turkey to carry out a military operation as well.

Replying to a question on whether the U.S. warplanes` violation of
Turkish airspace was discussed during the meeting, Senator Nelson
said that talks regarding such "violation" still continued and they
hoped the conflict could be solved in a positive way.

Turkey-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group chairman Egemen
Bagis will host a dinner in honor of the guest delegation this evening.

The U.S. delegation, which is expected to proceed to Istanbul on
Tuesday, will depart from Turkey on Friday.