WHAT WAS REALLY TALKED ABOUT AT CANKAYA?

Hurriyet
March 29 2010
Turkey

At a meeting with former U.S. Ambassador to Ankara Morton Abromowitz
and the Forbes magazine’s Claudia Rosett, whose statements were
denied over the weekend by the Presidential Office in Cankaya, and
with numerous American commentators, President Abdullah Gul talked
about the pain and sorrow felt during the 1915 Armenian events and
of Turks living in the Balkans. As leaving, he said "I salute your
elderly in the family," to the Armenian decent journalist Khatchig
Mouradian who told the story of his family left Turkey in 1915.

Coincidentally, I had a dinner with an old friend of mine from New York
at Yakup’s in Asmalı Mescit on Fri. evening. I was totally unaware
of this potential scandal of the next morning. My friend was: Rosett.

This is how things happened… I met Claudia when I was in New
York. She sent me an e-mail and let me know that she would be in Turkey
for a trip organized by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges
of Turkey, or TOBB, and Turkey Economic Policy Research Institute,
or TEPAV, and that she wants to see me. Since I was out of town,
we managed to meet on Fri. evening.

She was excited and spent a busy week through contacts with Mr.

President and officials from the Foreign Ministry, the TUSÄ°AD, eight
American journalists and commentators who were also participated in
a week-long TEPAV trip.

The government or non-governmental organizations organize similar
trips time to time in order to influence opinion leaders in U.S. and
Europe. And such trips have a great impact on Turkey’s image abroad.

This time, the aim was to promote Turkey and to create public opinion
ahead of the Apr. 24 speech of U.S. President Barack Obama for the
occasion of the so-called genocide’s commemoration. So Rosett and
Abramowitz as the big guns, in addition to two Armenian descent
journalists, Mouradian from the Armenian Weekly and Emil Sanamyan
from the Armenian Reporter daily, were invited to the meeting.

But her article published in the Forbes has caused a small diplomatic
crisis. After being received by Mr. Gul, Rosett in her article titled
"Turkey tilts toward Iran" claimed "…He is sure that even if Iran
gets the bomb, ‘they will not use it.’ he is sure they will remain
rational enough to refrain from devastating Israel–lest, by doing so,
they should harm the Palestinians or the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
(which he says would then create problems for Iran ‘with all the
Muslims of the Gulf and the surrounding regions’)."

This article was a bomb dropped in the agenda. As a matter of fact,
officials in Ankara imply a possibility that Iran is working on
an atomic bomb, they wouldn’t adopt a clear-cut stance before the
international community and say "Yes they are working on an atomic
bomb." On the contrary, Turkish authorities focus on the uncertainty
prevails in the Iranian nuclear program and want to remain outside
of a possible clash or not to ruin a chance of playing the mediator
between the West and Iran.

For this reason, as the Vatan daily carries this news to the headline,
I was not surprised to see a counter-statement issued by the Cankaya
Residence. Presidential Press Office was saying in it "Our President
had never given any interview to the Forbes magazine neither in the
past nor in present."

But on Friday evening, Claudia was telling me about the tea party she
had at Cankaya. The strangest thing is that both versions are accurate.

As Mr. Gul was receiving the TEPAV delegation on March 19 afternoon,
he was probably thinking this is just a meeting not an interview
session. According to Rosett, reporters in the group were told not
to bring in any tape-recorders, but no one told that conversations
will be off the record. Rosett defends that they were given small
notebooks and pens in the meeting. All were taking some notes and
nobody asked them to keep conversation off the record.

Rosett, TOBB President Rıfat Hisarcıklıoglu and Turkish Ambassador
to Washington Namık Tan say that this was certainly the dialogue took
place. She adds that there are both opinion and news in her article.

"If people disagree with my opinion, I understand that but there is
no error in quotations I noted down," Rosett claims.

At times, reasons behind a diplomatic crisis are so very simple. As I
searched about behind the doors of this Cankaya meeting, I came up with
a few elements that probably caused Mr. Gul to err. TEPAV sent CVs of
the attendees in advance of this gathering. In these notes however,
Rosett’s former affiliation, which is the Wall Street Journal, was
mentioned. So, Mr. Gul was probably thinking that he was talking to
a reporter from the Wall Street Journal not the Forbes magazine.

As I say, the reality at times is in simple mistakes, not in big
conspiracies.

* Ms. Aslı AydıntaÅ~_baÅ~_ is a columnist for the daily Milliyet
in which this piece appeared Monday. It was translated into English
by the Daily News.