The Associated Press
March 7, 2009 Saturday 11:40 AM GMT

Clinton meets Turkish leaders

ANKARA, Turkey

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met Saturday with
leaders of Turkey, a strategic ally that is key to resolving several
U.S. problems, including moving the military out of Iraq, blocking
Iran’s nuclear ambitions and turning around the war in Afghanistan.

Clinton talked with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for nearly two
hours at his residence before visiting the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, Turkey’s national founder. There, she recalled being in
Ankara during her husband’s presidency and said she had returned to
help President Barack Obama promote "the work the U.S. and Turkey must
do to forge peace, prosperity and progress."

Erdogan’s office said in a statement that the two discussed bilateral
relations, the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan and combatting
terrorism.

Clinton also planned a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Ali
Babacan and a meeting with President Abdullah Gul.

Turkey has been a supply route for American troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan and relations have improved after hitting a low in 2003
when Turkey refused to allow U.S. forces use its territory as a
staging ground for the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Turkey has said it is ready to serve as an exit route for U.S. troops
pulling out of Iraq. The southern Incirlik air base has been used for
transferring U.S. troops and equipment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Turkey, meanwhile, wants the Obama administration to prevent Congress
from labeling the killing of Armenians by Turks a century ago as
genocide.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed, an
event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the
20th century. Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying
the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.