US Department of State, DC

Remarks to the Press Following Meeting With Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey

R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs

Ankara, Turkey

September 19, 2007

Released by U.S. Embassy Ankara

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Good Afternoon. Ambassador Wilson and I have
just had an excellent meeting with Prime Minister Erdogan and we
conveyed to the Prime Minister the friendship and best respects of
President Bush. We said that it’s our President’s strong wish, our
government’s strong wish that we now strengthen our relationship with
Turkey for the period ahead. In that respect we said that we will
continue to support very strongly Turkey’s prospects for accession,
full accession, to the European Union. And we will continue to give
strong support to Turkey’s effort to combat the PKK. We very much
sympathize with the Turkish people and the Turkish government that PKK
actions against Turkey must be stopped. We condemn the latest PKK
action, which again has taken an innocent Turkish life. We also
assured the Prime Minister that the US government will continue to
oppose any resolution in the United States Congress on Armenian
genocide. Finally, we had a very good discussion about the intention
of the United States government to try to obviously increase trade and
invest with Turkey and to work with Turkey for the effort to find
peace between Israel and the Palestinians – an issue in which
Secretary Rice is engaged today in Israel itself.

We Americans have an excellent relationship with the government of
Turkey. We consider Turkey to be a great friend and ally of our
country. We look forward to strengthening that relationship and I
think you’ll see a lot of activity, many high level meetings between
our governments to do that in the months ahead.

Thank you very much.

QUESTION: What is the position of the US government on the natural gas
agreement between Iran and Turkey?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Thank you very much. I explained to the Prime
Minister that the United States is pursuing a peaceful diplomatic
strategy towards Iran. We hope very much that we can work with many
countries around the world to convince Iran to stop its nuclear
research and to agree to negotiations. Iran has refused to do both so
far and we think the best course is for the US to work with Turkey and
with many other countries — of the European countries, with Russia
and China – to convince Iran that diplomacy and negotiations are the
way forward and the responsibility lies with Iran to choose
negotiations. So in that sense, if diplomacy is to be effective, we
will need the support of all countries in Asia, in the Middle East, in
Europe, to contribute to the sanctions against Iran.

QUESTION: Is the India-US nuclear deal in trouble?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Thank you. I think that the US-India nuclear
deal is firmly intact. It’s going to be successful. We’re going to
move forward on it and you’ll see that happen in the next few months.

QUESTION: How is the investigation going into US-made weapons falling
into the hands of the PKK?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Let me just say this. The Ambassador and I
assured the Prime Minister and we will assure all the other Turkish
officials with whom we meet today that we are solidly with Turkey. We
support Turkey; we oppose the PKK; we give no arms to the PKK; we give
no support to the PKK. The PKK is a vicious terrorist organization. It
deserves universal condemnation. It will have no support from the
United States — on the contrary. We hope to work with the Iraqi
government, the Turkish government and of course our own government to
see that these activities, these horrible actions of the PKK, are
brought to an end.

QUESTION: Will Secretary Rice come to Turkey for the Iraqi Neighbors
meeting in Istanbul?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Yes, Secretary Rice has decided that she of
course will come to Istanbul to the conference being hosted by the
Turkish government for support to Iraq and she looks forward obviously
to good meetings with the Turkish leadership when she’s here. And in
that regard, we view Turkey on the question of Iraq, on the question
of Middle East peace between Israel and the Palestinians, to be a
central actor and to be an indispensable country in the search for
peace in the Middle East in general.

QUESTION: Is there any confirmation on the date of the meeting between
the Prime Minister and President Bush in Washington?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I think the White House would be the ones to
announce that but we are looking forward to a series of high level
meetings this year.

Thank you.

Released on September 19, 2007