JOINT PRESS AVAILABILITY WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA AND PRESIDENT GUL OF TURKEY

White House Documents and Publications
April 6, 2009

PRESIDENT GUL: (As translated.) We are very pleased to host the
President of the United States, Mr. Barack Obama, in Turkey. It
would not be wrong to say that our discussions began in Strasbourg,
and the discussions that we began in Strasbourg, we continued with
them today, both during our meeting and then over lunch. And it was
very beneficial.

At the outset of my remarks, I would like to say that we heard that
there’s been an earthquake in Italy — we just heard. And I would
like to express my condolences to the people who lost their lives. We
share the sorrow of the Italian people.

We are very appreciative of the fact that Mr. Obama, having been
elected President, made Turkey one of his stops in his first overseas
visit, and we have been very happy with that — the Turkish people
have been very happy with that.

We have had opportunity to review the strategic dimension of our
relations. Most of our relations seem to be on a military and political
dimension, but we are also determined to move forward on the economic
dimension of our relations. On the area of technology, we’ll continue
to support development of economic and technology cooperation. These
are areas which we place importance on.

In we look at Turkish-American issues, we see that the United States
is very much interested, and must be interested, in important issues
around the world as a superpower, and Turkey is an important country
in her region, and Turkey is very much interested in many subjects. So
if we were to make two separate lists of the issues that our countries
are interested in, we would see that they are very much alike. And
so I’m very pleased to say that Turkey and the United States have
great understanding for each other and they work in cooperation with
each other.

Of course, fighting against terrorism is one of the most important
issues for both of the countries, and the cooperation that we’ve
had so far will be further developed, and in many geographies,
from Afghanistan to the Caucuses to the Balkans to the Middle East,
we are working together and we are determined to continue to work
together. And the President has also shown great interest to Turkey’s
relations with the European Union. We appreciate that very much. We
thank him very much for his words in that regard.

I think that this visit has been very beneficial. I’d like to welcome
the President once again and wish him success.

Please.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, thank you very much. And, President Gul, you
could not be a better host, and we are grateful to you and your team,
as well as all the people of Turkey for the extraordinary hospitality
that you’ve extended to us.

As you mentioned, we just heard the news of the earthquake in Italy,
and we want to send out condolences to the families there and hope
that we are able to get rescue teams in and that we can minimize the
damage as much as possible moving forward.

I have now spent a week traveling through Europe. And I’ve been
asked,are you trying to make a statement by ending this weeklong trip
in Turkey" And the answer is, yes, I am trying to make a statement. I’m
trying to make a statement about the importance of Turkey not just
to the United States but to the world. This is a country that has
been often said lies at the crossroads between East and West. It’s
a country that possesses an extraordinarily rich heritage, but also
represents a blend of those ancient traditions with a modern nation
state that respects democracy, respects rule of law and is striving
towards a modern economy.

It is a member of NATO and it is also a majority Muslim nation, unique
in that position, and so, as a consequence, has insights into a whole
host of regional and strategic challenges that we may face. And I’ve
been extraordinarily impressed with President Gul and the quality
of his leadership, as well as Prime Minister Erdogan, and so, as a
consequence, I’m excited about the prospects of us working together.

As the President noted, we had a wide-ranging conversation. We thanked
Turkey for its outstanding work in Afghanistan, and we discussed our
strategic review. We have a similar perspective in terms of how to
move forward, and Turkey’s contributions to ISAF and the overarching
effort is going to be critical.

We discussed the progress that’s been made in Iraq and how we can
continue to build on that progress as the U.S. begins to draw down
its troops.

We talked about Middle East peace and how that can be achieved. And
we discussed the need — a shared view for us to reduce the threat
of nuclear proliferation not just in the region, but around the
world. And as President Gul noted, we also talked about business and
commerce, because all too often the U.S.-Turkish relationship has
been characterized just by military issues and yet there’s enormous
possibilities for us to grow the economy and to make sure that trade
between our countries and commerce and the lines of communication
between our two countries continually strengthen, because we think
that that’s going to be good for Turkey, but it’s also going to be
good for the United States.

So we also discussed the issue of terrorism more broadly. And I
reiterated my support to make sure that we are supporting Turkey in
dealing with terrorist threats that may — they may experience.

So, overall it was an extremely productive meeting, and it gives me
confidence that, moving forward, not only are we going to be able to
improve our bilateral relations, but as we work together we’re going
to be able to I think shape a set of strategies that can bridge the
divide between the Muslim world and the West that can make us more
prosperous and more secure.

And so I’m proud that the United States is a partner with Turkey,
and we want to build on that partnership in the years to come.

PRESIDENT GUL: Thank you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Okay. We were going to call on one —

PRESIDENT GUL: One and one, yes. Sorry.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Do you want me to start, or you?

PRESIDENT GUL: You can start, yes.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Christy Parsons, Chicago Tribune — hometown —
hometown newspaper.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. As a U.S. senator you stood with the
Armenian-American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgement
of the Armenian genocide and you also supported the passage of
the Armenian genocide resolution. You said, as President you would
recognize the genocide. And my question for you is, have you changed
your view, and did you ask President Gul to recognize the genocide
by name?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, my views are on the record and I have not
changed views. What I have been very encouraged by is news that under
President Gul’s leadership, you are seeing a series of negotiations,
a process, in place between Armenia and Turkey to resolve a whole
host of longstanding issues, including this one.

I want to be as encouraging as possible around those negotiations which
are moving forward and could bear fruit very quickly very soon. And
so as a consequence, what I want to do is not focus on my views right
now but focus on the views of the Turkish and the Armenian people. If
they can move forward and deal with a difficult and tragic history,
then I think the entire world should encourage them.

And so what I told the President was I want to be as constructive
as possible in moving these issues forward quickly. And my sense is,
is that they are moving quickly. I don’t want to, as the President of
the United States, preempt any possible arrangements or announcements
that might be made in the near future. I just want to say that we
are going to be a partner in working through these issues in such
a way that the most important parties, the Turks and the Armenians,
are finally coming to terms in a constructive way.

Q So if I understand you correctly, your view hasn’t changed, but
you’ll put in abeyance the issue of whether to use that word in
the future?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: What I’d like to do is to encourage President Gul to
move forward with what have been some very fruitful negotiations. And
I’m not interested in the United States in any way tilting these
negotiations one way or another while they are having useful
discussions.

Q Thank you.

PRESIDENT GUL: (As translated.) Let me also share my views on this
subject. This is an issue under great discussion. But it is not a
legal or political issue, it’s a historical issue. What is being
discussed is a situation that was experienced in 1915 under the
conditions of World War I, when the Ottoman Empire was battling on
four fronts. And unfortunately, some citizens of the empire then
were provoked by some other countries and there were many internal
clashes and many people lost their lives. And we share the sorrow
of all those who lost their lives, but we have to remember that the
Muslim population also suffered greatly at the same time.

And at the time from the Balkans, from the Caucasus, there were
millions of Muslim Turks who were displaced, who were having to come to
travel to Turkey, and there were many losses as they traveled. So the
losses there took place during the chaotic times of the situation then.

But when the Turkish republic — the modern republic was established,
the Turkish republic did not create this into big issue in order
not to create greater hatred or hostility in future generations. But
unfortunately, these issues politically, especially by the diaspora,
have been brought to the agenda as a way to perhaps cling to their
identity.

And our view to that has been that we should let the historians, the
experts on the subject, sit down and talk about this issue. We are
ready to face the realities, the facts. It cannot be the politicians
and the legal experts who can make decisions here as to what happened
when, under what conditions, and who lost more lives, and who is
right and who is wrong. It is not a parliamentarian, a politician,
who can make a decision on this without knowing the circumstances to
the situation.

So that’s why we suggested that a joint history commission be
established and that we would agree to the results or the conclusions
of this commission. And Turkey opened — made its archives available
for that purpose.

And we invited everyone, including the Armenians, and we took one
more step forward and we said that if another country, for example,
the United States or France, if they are very much interested in this
issue, then they, too, could be a part of this joint commission and
we would be ready to listen to the conclusions of that commission.

We, as Turkey, we would like to have good relations with all the
countries in our region. Our relations with Armenia, unfortunately,
did not exist so much, although there are some Armenian citizens
in Turkey now — there are more than 70,000 Armenians who work —
live in Turkey, who send money back to their families and there are
some cultural activities. But we didn’t have other relations. And
our goal in order to normalize these relations, as Mr. President has
just said, we initiated some discussions to normalize relations and
we would like to see a good resolution of these discussions.

No doubt there’s a new situation in the Caucasus. We saw how potential
events could flare up in the Caucuses last year. So it’s important
that in this process we work together to try to resolve the issues
in the Caucasus. We should work to resolve issues between Armenia
and Azerbaijan, and all the conflict in the region so that the area
becomes fertile ground for greater cooperation.

And we have a lot of work, with the best of intentions, in that regard,
and I do believe that when we reach a conclusion we will have resolved
many issues.

Q A question to both Presidents, both leaders. Mr. Obama, during the
Bush presidency there were some difficulties in Turkish-American
relations, and certain steps were taken to resolve those
difficulties. We are in the third month of your presidency and there
is a high expectation in the Turkish public opinion, as well, about
Turkish-American relations. So what will be changes in your outlook on
Turkish-American relations as opposed to the previous administration?

Another question to both Presidents. You said that you discussed
fighting against terrorism. There’s, again, a lot of expectation in
the Turkish public opinion regarding the elimination of the PKK. What
sort of concrete steps will we see in that regard?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: As I mentioned at the outset, I think despite some of
the problems that we saw, beginning in 2003, that you have seen steady
improvement between U.S.-Turkish relations. I don’t think they ever
deteriorated so far that we ceased to be friends and allies. And what
I hope to do is to build on what is already a strong foundation. As
I indicated earlier, commercial ties can be improved. That’s an area
where I think the President and I share a vision.

I think when it comes to our cooperation on terrorism, I’ve been
very clear that PKK is on our terrorist watch list. As a NATO ally of
Turkey’s, we are very comfortable with providing them the assistance
they need to reduce the threat. We have seen that cooperation bear
fruit over the last several months, over the last year. You’ve seen a
lessening of the attacks that have been taking place. We’ll continue
to provide that support, and President Gul and I discussed how we
can provide additional support on that front. But we have been very
clear that terrorism is not acceptable in any circumstances.

I think that where — where there’s the most promise of building
stronger U.S.-Turkish relations is in the recognition that Turkey
and the United States can build a model partnership in which a
predominantly Christian nation and a predominantly Muslim nation, a
Western nation and a nation that straddles two continents — that we
can create a modern international community that is respectful, that
is secure, that is prosperous; that there are not tensions, inevitable
tensions, between cultures, which I think is extraordinarily important.

That’s something that’s very important to me. And I’ve said before
that one of the great strengths of the United States is — although
as I mentioned, we have a very large Christian population, we do not
consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim
nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by
ideals and a set of values.

I think Turkey was — modern Turkey was founded with a similar set
of principles, and yet what we’re seeing is in both countries that
promise of a secular country that is respectful of religious freedom,
respectful of rule of law, respectful of freedom, upholding these
values and being willing to stand up for them in the international
stage. If we are joined together in delivering that message, East
and West, to — to the world, then I think that we can have an
extraordinary impact. And I’m very much looking forward to that
partnership in the days to come.

Okay.

PRESIDENT GUL: Okay. Thank you.