TURKEY WANTS CONCRETE STEPS TO SEND ENVOY BACK TO US

Today’s Zaman
March 10 2010
Turkey

PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on
Monday for talks with King Abdullah and to accept the King Faisal
International Prize for Service to Islam, known as the "Arab Nobel
Prize."

Turkey will take its time during a broad assessment of bilateral
relations with the United States after a US congressional committee
last week branded the killings of Anatolian Armenians during World
War I as genocide, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

The prime minister was speaking to reporters in Riyadh, where he
accepted the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam,
popularly known as the "Arab Nobel Prize," when asked about timing of
Turkish Ambassador to the US Namık Tan’s return to Washington. Tan
was recalled for consultations after the US House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs approved the non-binding resolution on
Thursday in a vote broadcast live on Turkish television.

Emphasizing that the timing of the US vote was particularly unfortunate
as it came at a time when Turkey had been trying to normalize relations
with neighboring Armenia, Erdogan reiterated Turkey’s uneasiness over
the performance of the committee chairman, Howard Berman.

Erdogan said Berman failed to display an appropriately professional
stance and pressured committee members to vote for the resolution.

"For us, the manner that will be assumed from now on is important.

We’ve been following this manner," Erdogan was quoted as saying by
the Anatolia news agency.

"I don’t believe the US will sacrifice a strategic partner such as
Turkey in the cause of trivial political calculations. We have nothing
to say if they take this risk. We will assess the situation in the
broadest meaning; we have to. As long as we don’t see [the] results
[we wished for], we will not be sending our ambassador to the US,"
Erdogan added.

Armenia and Turkey signed two protocols in Zurich on Oct. 10 — the
"Protocol on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations" and the
"Protocol on the Development of Bilateral Relations." The deals,
seen as crucial to obtaining long-term peace in the volatile South
Caucasus, must be ratified by the parliaments in Ankara and Yerevan.

In Ankara, the two main opposition party leaders, Republican People’s
Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)
Chairman Devlet Bahceli, both speaking at their parties’ parliamentary
group meetings, called on the government to annul the protocols.

Bahceli also urged the government to draft a new regulation on the US
military’s use of Ä°ncirlik Air Base in Adana and called on Erdogan
to cancel a planned visit to Washington. Erdogan is among the leaders
who were invited by US President Barack Obama to participate in a
White House Summit on Nuclear Security on April 13.

"Our nation is expecting these reactions and precautions from
Prime Minister Erdogan. The rest is just empty words and has no
correspondence in diplomacy," Bahceli said.

Diplomatic sources have said self-isolating measures such as shutting
down Ä°ncirlik Air Base or cutting defense imports from the US are
unlikely at this stage. But damage to the partnership with Turkey
is likely to hurt US strategic interests in the Middle East and
Afghanistan, where Turkey is a key contributor to the NATO-led
peacekeeping force. Its growing clout in the Middle East has given
Turkey a key role in the region, making it a valuable ally for the
US that is capable of exerting influence in areas and groups where
the US presence and influence are limited.

Meanwhile, The Hill, a congressional newspaper that publishes daily
when US Congress is in session, reported on Monday that Rep. Adam
Schiff (D-Calif.), the resolution’s main sponsor, won’t insist on a
vote until he’s certain he has enough support for it to pass.

According to the report, there are no plans to bring the measure to the
House floor any time soon, a Democratic leadership aide said Monday.

The resolution has only 137 co-sponsors; that’s well below the 212 who
were still signed on to an identical resolution in 2007 even after
a similar opposition campaign reduced the number of its supporters
and kept it from the House floor, The Hill noted.

BOX: Syria-Israel talks may resume under Turkish mediation

Indirect talks between Syria and Israel that collapsed last year
following Israel’s deadly offensive in Gaza may restart, reviving
peace hopes in the region.

A Turkish official speaking on condition of anonymity said efforts
to resume the Turkish-mediated talks were to gain momentum in the
coming days, without elaborating.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking after a visit to Syria on
Sunday, told the London-based Arabic al-Hayat newspaper that Damascus
was prepared to resume talks where they left off over a year ago,
The Jerusalem Post said on Tuesday. "All the senior US officials I
speak to, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Middle East
envoy George Mitchell, totally support resuming the negotiations,"
he was quoted as saying. Davutoglu told reporters after talks with
President Bashar al-Assad that they had discussed the resumption of
the Turkish-mediated talks.

Davutoglu told al-Hayat that he was "very optimistic" regarding the
resumption of the Turkish-mediated talks but said he could not say
for sure when this would happen.

On Tuesday, news reports said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
on a visit to Saudi Arabia, said Israel accepted the resumption
of Turkish-mediated talks but officials later denied Erdogan had
made the remarks, saying he only mentioned that there was a positive
atmosphere. The Foreign Ministry was cautious, telling Today’s Zaman
that Ankara would resume mediation if Israel officially requests it.