MAKING GOOD ON HIS PROMISE, OBAMA VISITS TURKEY
Linda Wertheimer
National Public Radio (NPR)
April 5, 2009 Sunday
>From NPR News, this is WEEKEND EDITION. I’m Linda Wertheimer. Liane
Hansen is away. This morning President Barack Obama condemned North
Korea for launching a missile, which apparently landed in the Pacific
Ocean. The President called on the U.N. Security Council to take
action. Mr. Obama spoke of the dangers of nuclear proliferation from
Prague while on his weeklong trip to Europe. His final scheduled
stop is a two-day visit to Turkey and he will address the Turkish
parliament tomorrow. NPR’s Peter Kenyon reports from Ankara.
PETER KENYON: There may be no better example than Turkey if you’re
looking for evidence that President Obama’s foreign policy message of
more diplomacy and less force has dramatically resurrected America’s
image abroad. Serkan Demirtas, Ankara bureau chief of the Hurriyet
Daily News and Economic Review, says it’s hard to overstate the depth
of anti-American feelings during the Bush years. A poll a few years
ago ranked Bush at the bottom of the list of trusted foreign leaders,
well below Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mr. SERKAN DEMIRTAS (Ankara Bureau Chief, Hurriyet Daily News and
Economic Review): After the elections in the States, Obama, now he’s
the most trusted foreign leader for Turks. This even shows how the
feelings in this country have changed.
KENYON: When President Obama addresses Turkish lawmakers tomorrow,
he will be reminding them of the last president to speak here, Bill
Clinton. Again, the contrast with the Bush administration resonates
with the Turks. Former ambassador to the U.S., Faruk Logoglu, says
during the Bush years Washington seemed intent on holding Turkey up
as the model of a moderate Muslim state, especially after the Islamic
AK Party was elected here.
Many Turks passionately insist that’s not accurate, that Turkey is a
secular democratic state that happens to be 90 percent Muslim. It’s
a distinction that the Obama administration seems sensitive to, says
Logoglu, which may be why the president is coming here at the tail
end of a European trip and not as part of a Mideast swing.
Mr. FARUK LOGOGLU (Former Turkish Ambassador To U.S.): He will make
a major address to the Turkish parliament. In that address, like
President Clinton did some years ago, he will, I think, galvanize
Turkish public opinion. This is going to be the greatest value. I
think President Obama wants to see Turkey firmly anchored in the
U.S. as a member of NATO, as a future member of the European Union.
KENYON: A rejuvenated U.S.-Turkey relationship holds promise on a
number of fronts. Turkey hosted indirect Syria-Israeli talks last
year. It has long- standing ties with Afghanistan and Pakistan, two
of the most critical geopolitical areas in the world today. Turkey
also has important commerce with Iran and Russia. So it’s clear what
the west has to gain from a more engaged Turkey, but what does Turkey
want? One thing Ankara wants is a stable Iraq, especially Kurdish
northern Iraq, from where separatist PKK militants have staged their
attacks into southern Turkey.
There’s also a potential controversy, the long-running Armenian
genocide dispute. Turkey refuses to call the World War I era violence
by Arab and Turks against Armenians a genocide, although historians
say up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed. It’s not clear that
it will come up tomorrow in the address to parliament, but Armenian
Independence Day is coming on April 24th.
Professor Meliha Altunisik at Ankara’s Mideast Technical University
says, considering that Obama called it genocide during the campaign,
much attention will be paid to how the White House describes it now.
Professor MELIHA ALTUNISIK (Mideast Technical University): Right,
definitely. I mean, this is one of the stumbling blocks, I think, in
the relationship, whether President Obama will refer to these events as
a genocide. There would be a reaction in Turkey, definitely. It would
flare up nationalist sentiments and it would affect Turkish-American
relations.
KENYON: No doubt more political minefields await, but for now Turkey
is thrilled to welcome the new American president and his message of
diplomacy, dialogue and engagement – and is eager to regain to its
role as a political, as well as geographical crossroads.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress