National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: All Things Considered 8:00 PM EST NPR
April 3, 2009 Friday

Turkey Optimistic About Obama Despite Hurdles

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

President Obama will visit Turkey on Monday. And so, today, we look
ahead to the political landscape that awaits him.

Asli Aydintasbas is a Turkish journalist and a former Ankara bureau
chief for the newspaper Sabah. She joins us on the phone from
Istanbul. Welcome to the program.

Ms. ASLI AYDINTASBAS (Journalist, Istanbul): Hi, Michele, happy to be
there.

NORRIS: How has Turkey been hit in the current economic downturn?

Ms. AYDINTASBAS: We’ve been hit just like everybody else. But I
wouldn’t say we’d been hit really badly. People blame America for
other things here, but economy is not really one. We had a horrible
recession in 2001, much like the Wall Street crash that you feel this
year in the States. So, all the measures that are being implemented
now in the States and on Wall Street, that, we did in 2001. So, thanks
to that, our banking system seem to be better off than most of their
counterparts in most Western countries.

NORRIS: So it all seems relative. The president might not be engaged
in the kind of blame game that he faced in visiting some of the other
European nations, where people seem to express a certain amount of
anger at the U.S. for perhaps causing this global mess.

Ms. AYDINTASBAS: We typically do the blame game here amongst each
other.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. AYDINTASBAS: So there is enough blame going around here. But I
think the fact that the banking system, the financial system is
looking okay right now is a great relief, of course.

NORRIS: The relationship between these two countries has been somewhat
tense in recent years. Where have things gone wrong? And what does
President Obama need to do to try to improve that relationship?

Ms. AYDINTASBAS: Well, that’s right. I mean Turkey is a close
U.S. ally. But if you look at figures, anti-Americanism has been
really high here over the last five years. It’s actually a great
paradox.

President Clinton used to be a very popular guy here, especially when
he visited Turkey after devastating earthquake here. And what happened
with the Bush administration – Bush presidency – was, of course, the
Iraq War. And Turks were overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly opposed to the
Iraq War. So you had this entirely toxic environment within a few
years after President Bush came to power and anti-Americanism was
really high.

Now, there’s a real window of opportunity, I would say, because Turks
watched very closely President Obama’s election process, and he’s been
a popular guy here, just like Clinton was, if not more. I mean I could
tell you anecdotes, like tribal chieftain in southeastern Turkey has
sacrificed even 44 sheep in honor of Obama being elected the 44th
president of United States. So that’s how popular he is.

NORRIS: Asli, there’s one issue that could play a bigger role here
than any other: Armenia, and whether or not President Obama might
throw his weight behind a congressional effort in this country to
recognize the deaths of thousands of Armenians in 1915 as a
genocide. What are the pitfalls for this president on that question?

Ms. AYDINTASBAS: It’s really a hot-button issue in the relationship,
and certainly I think something that makes people at the State
Department who work on Turkey to lose sleep these days. If President
Obama delivers on his campaign promise to recognize it as a genocide,
I think, there would certainly be quite a bit of backlash in Turkish
public opinion. Because don’t forget, here in Turkey, people are
brought up going through the educational system thinking this is not a
genocide and that it was a civil war, and there had been killings on
both sides.

So at least for about six, seven months, I would say it would
significantly strain the relationship and maybe make it more difficult
for Turkey and United States to cooperate on Iraq on a number of
issues.

NORRIS: Asli Aydintasbas, thank you very much.

Ms. AYDINTASBAS: Thank you.

NORRIS: Asli Aydintasbas is a Turkish journalist. She’s also the
former Ankara bureau chief for the newspaper Sabah.