Hürriyet , Turkey
March 11 2009

Obama visit to Turkey significant

WASHINGTON – The U.S. State Department said Monday that President
Barack Obama’s planned visit to Turkey next month was significant, as
"there’s a lot of business to do with Turkey."

State Department spokesman Robert Wood spent part of his daily
briefing defending Obama’s decision to visit Turkey in the face of a
Greek reporter’s criticism along the lines of "why does he go to
Turkey, but not to Greece?"

Over the weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in
Ankara Obama’s plan to visit Turkey "within a month or so."

Obama is expected to arrive in Turkey around April 7, after a tour of
several European nations to attend international meetings. He will
take part in a G20 meeting in London, a NATO summit in Strasbourg,
France, and a European Union summit in the Czech capital of Prague.

"Turkey’s an important ally and there’s a lot of business to do with
Turkey. And we think it is significant that the president’s decided to
go," Wood said, when the Greek reporter asked why Obama decided to
visit Turkey.

Asked again if Obama or Clinton had immediate plans to visit Greece,
the spokesman responded negatively.

At this point the Greek reporter protested and said, "they are, of
course, a NATO ally as well as Turkey."

Wood agreed and said: "Greece is an important ally of the United
States … Foreign Minister Bakoyannis was here last week to meet with
the secretary. And we’ve got a lot of business as well to do with the
Greek government."

Asked about the U.S. position on the Armenian claims of "genocide" and
if it had been discussed during Clinton’s visit to Ankara on the
weekend, Wood said: "That issue certainly was a subject that was
discussed, but I’m not going to get into the details of the
discussion."