US Department of State, DC

Interview With Murat Akgun of NTV

R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political
Affairs
Ankara, Turkey
September 20, 2007

QUESTION: Mr. Burns, good morning and welcome to the NTV studio.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Thank you very much.

QUESTION: It’s not a secret that the Turkish public is expecting a
step or steps from the United States of America against the PKK as
soon as possible, especially in northern Iraq. Do you think that we
can see such steps in northern Iraq in the short term?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: We are Turkey’s greatest supporter on the
PKK. We are against the PKK; we classify it as a terrorist
organization; we do not give it any support; and we entirely
sympathize with the Turkish people, the Turkish government. There was
just an attack two days ago. A soldier was killed here in Turkey and I
believe over 150 people have been killed this year by the PKK
alone. And so we’ve got to work with Turkey and we want to work with
Turkey to try to end this threat. Part of the answer will be working
with the Iraqi leadership, specifically the Kurdish leadership in
northern Iraq, to try to get them to give political support to the
effort to stop the PKK. But we support Turkey entirely on this issue.

QUESTION: Last week there was a question to you from a journalist in
Washington, if I’m not wrong. The question was can we see a step or
steps from the US against the PKK in the next six months and then you
said I believe so. If this is the correct answer as I remember it,
what are you waiting for for some steps, especially in the military
field in northern Iraq?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, I think that the imperative here is two
steps. First is to isolate the PKK diplomatically, convince the
European countries not to allow the PKK to establish political front
organizations in European capitals and is to brand the PKK and
castigate it internationally as a terrorist organization. We the
United States have contributed to that goal with Turkey, working with
the Turkish government, and will continue that. The second is — are
there concrete measures that can be taken to protect the Turkish
people and to protect the Turkish military from cross-border attacks?
We are working with the Turkish government and the Iraqi government to
try to create that environment where the PKK will no longer be able to
attack. So we want to be helpful and we’re working with the Turkish
government towards that end.

QUESTION: Are we still in the first step, Mr. Burns?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: No, I think we’ve…we’ve been in the first
step for ten years. We are in both the first and second phases. And
both of them are important.

QUESTION: You were talking about cooperation between Iraqi authorities
and Turkey and especially Kurdish leadership and Turkey, but now there
are two important questions. First, Iraqi authorities have no power
everywhere in the country and second, the Kurdish leadership do not
even qualify PKK as a terrorist organization. In this case, what kind
of cooperation do you expect between Turks and Kurds?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, I think there has to be political
dialogue, frankly, with the Iraqi leadership and the Turkish
government and the two have to talk. Hopefully the Turkish government
and the United States government can convince the Iraqi leadership
that this particular organization is a violent organization, it
doesn’t deserve to have any political support whatsoever, and it has
to be kept away from the border areas with Turkey so that it cannot
launch its strikes across the border. That is primarily a political
question. So discussions are important. The United States can help to
facilitate these discussions. We have our own discussions with the
Iraqi government. I know that Prime Minister Maliki was here in Ankara
just a couple of months ago. I know that he said some very critical
things about the PKK when he was here and it was good to see that.

QUESTION: But on the other hand, during the visit of Mr. Maliki we
couldn’t even succeed to sign an agreement concerning the fight
against terrorism.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, there’s no question that Turkey deserves
help from the United States. We are your ally. We are your friend. As
a victim of terrorism, and we are a victim of terrorism, we sympathize
entirely with the Turkish people and Turkish government so you should
consider us your closest collaborator in this fight against the PKK.

QUESTION: When you say that the United States of America is also the
victim of terrorism, I just remembered the statement of the Prime
Minister of Turkey the day before yesterday. He said that even the
Pentagon could not handle the terrorism. How do you evaluate this
remark?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, I think that first of all I had a very
good meeting with Prime Minister Erdogan yesterday and I think that
we, all of us, realize that the fight against terrorism is not going
to be easy, that there are times when we’ll have successes and there
will be times when we’ll have setbacks, but we’ve got to have a
consistent effort. And it had to be universal. It has to be all
democratic countries working together so in that respect I think
there’s a great connection between Turkey and the United States
because we both need to struggle against terrorism, which is affecting
both of our peoples.

QUESTION: Well, there’s a discussion among the public in Turkey
whether Turkish armed forces should make an operation into northern
Iraq or not, if there is not enough cooperation between the Iraqi
Kurdish leadership and Iraqi central authorities and Turkey. Do you
think that it’s going to be a legitimate right of Turkey to make an
operation against PKK targets?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: We hope there will be adequate consultations
and cooperation with the Iraqi government that will make it
unnecessary for Turkey to take such an action. Obviously Iraq is a
country that has experienced incredible trauma over the last four and
a half years. We don’t want to see anything develop that would further
destabilize Iraq and so our vast preference would be to see the kind
of trilateral cooperation among Iraq, Turkey and the United States
that will make such an operation not necessary. And that’s the goal of
our policy.

QUESTION: I will have one more question concerning Iraq. There are
press reports that the United States of America will withdraw forces
from Iraq next year more and more and according to the same reports
the Washington administration would like to use some harbors and bases
in Turkey. During your visit to Ankara did you have any specific
request concerning this issue to the Turkish authorities?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I didn’t have…I did not have any specific
request to the Turkish authorities and I can just tell you that
President Bush spoke last week, a week ago, about our policy in
Iraq. He was very clear that the United States will maintain our
military forces in Iraq and that we intend to be successful there.

QUESTION: Iraq is not the only issue in the Middle East or among our
neighbors. I would like to ask a question about Iran. How would you
evaluate the cooperation between Iran and Turkey due to the fact that
they are two neighboring countries?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, first of all, we believe that Iran is a
serious threat to peace. Iran is funding most of the Middle East
terrorist groups and arming many of them. Iran is also trying to
achieve a nuclear weapons capability. So Iran is a dangerous
country. We want to work diplomatically, hopefully peacefully, with
surrounding countries to try to isolate the Iranians. And, frankly,
the United Nations has decided on sanctioning Iran so we are very
pleased that Turkey is implementing the sanctions passed by the United
Nations. We don’t believe there should be a business-as-usual attitude
between any country and Iran because we need to pressure Iran
economically so it will be more inclined to negotiate on this nuclear
question.

QUESTION: There was very strong, hard statements from the French
President and the French Foreign Minister concerning the nuclear
capacity of Iran. Mr. Kouchner even mentioned the possibility of a war
against Iran. Is it an option – a war between Iran and western
countries or an operation of the United States of America if they do
have nuclear weapons?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, there’s no question in our minds that the
achievement by the Iranian government in the future of a nuclear
weapons capability would change the balance of power in the Middle
East in a very negative way – for Turkey, for the United States, for
all of the European countries – so all of us want to stop the Iranians
from doing so. We have said, we Americans, that we wish to pursue
diplomacy, that we wish to work with other countries to try to
convince the Iranians that they need to stop. Now, one way to do that
is through negotiations. We’ve offered negotiations with Iran. Iran
had turned us down twice in the last year. We’ve said that we’ll sit
with Russia and China and the European countries, we the United
States, together, talk to the Iranians and try to figure out a
diplomatic way forward, but the Iranians have said no to the
negotiations and they continue their nuclear research programs. That’s
why we’ve turned to sanctions, economic sanctions, at the Security
Council. And we would like all countries to support those sanctions.

QUESTION: Do you still believe that there is risk of war in the area
because of the nuclear capacity of Iran in the short term or mid-term?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, we hope very much to prevent a war. We
hope very much that through a tough-minded policy of leverage of
sanctions against Iran the Iranians will understand they are isolated
in the world. Name the countries that support Iran in this quest for
nuclear weapons – maybe Syria, maybe North Korea, maybe Belarus, maybe
Cuba. There are very few countries supporting Iran in its quest for
nuclear weapons in terms of its political aspirations. But most of the
countries of the world are arrayed against Iran and advocating that
Iran stop its nuclear weapons development and so it’s important that
Iran listen to the voice of the international community and understand
how isolated it is.

QUESTION: A question about Syria – there was serious tension between
Israel and Syria in recent days. There was a protest from the Turkish
government to Israel. What kind of role may Turkey have concerning
the tension between Israel and Syria and in general concerning the
Middle East process, including the peace conference at the end of next
month in Istanbul?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well I think in general Turkey is a unique
country in the Middle East and has influence in the Middle East
because Turkey can talk to nearly everyone and we appreciate the fact
that Turkey has a good relationship with Israel. We appreciate the
fact that Turkey is so close to some of the moderate Arab states. In
the case of Syria and Iran, both of those countries are supporting
terrorism and both of them are supporting Hezbollah which is a
negative influence in the region and so we appreciate the fact that
Turkey is a country that can send strong messages and communicate with
countries to try to convince them to turn away in the case of Iran
from a nuclear weapons program, in the case of Syria, from its support
for terrorism.

QUESTION: About Cyrus, there were elections in Turkey and Greece and
now we’re going to have elections in the Greek part of Cyprus by the
beginning of next year. What’s going to happen? Do you see the chance
of the development of a permanent solution at the end of 2008 in
Cyprus?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: We hope there can be progress in Cyprus. It’s
been far too long. It’s been so many decades where there has been no
peace in Cyprus…

QUESTION: I’m asking about a solution…

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, we believe that the United Nations should
restart its effort to find a peaceful solution and a just solution to
the problem of Cyprus. The United States of course will be involved in
this, as will Turkey, as will Greece and many other countries. We
think it’s very, very important that there be progress this year if
that’s possible. Now we know that Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Talat met
recently. I don’t know if that meeting produced many positive
results. I had very good discussions here in Ankara with the Turkish
authorities. We are working with Turkey; we are working with Greece;
and I look forward to meeting the Cypriot leader, President
Papadopoulos, as well as Mr. Talat to see if we can push this process
forward.

QUESTION: Last question concerning Turkish-Armenia relations. We know
that the Washington administration wants Turkey to take some steps to
normalization relations between the two countries but how about the
Armenian responsibility? Don’t you think that Armenia should also do
something? For example withdraw its forces from Azerbaijan’s occupied
territory?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: We have been concerned to see that since 1991
there has been no normalization of relations between Turkey and
Armenia. Turkey is an ally; Armenia is a friend. So we wish to see
progress there. Obviously this is up to the two countries to work out
and it’s going to be a two-way street as any relationship is in
international diplomacy but our hope would be that there could be a
normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia, that the border
could be opened, there could be normal commerce and trade and a
peaceful relationship. That may take some time, it may be difficult,
but it’s a necessary step in our view. And we hope to see the same
kind of changes here within Turkey that will make this a place where
minorities such as the Armenian population can live here in a peaceful
way and contribute to Turkish society.

QUESTION: Mr. Burns, thank you very much for answering my questions.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: It’s a pleasure. Thank you very much.