Erdogan And Obama To Have Unscheduled Meeting In Washington

ERDOGAN AND OBAMA TO HAVE UNSCHEDULED MEETING IN WASHINGTON

ArmInfo
2010-04-13 11:43:00

ArmInfo. US President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyop Erdogan are expected to meet in Washington today on Tuesday as
part of the Global Nuclear Summit. The meeting has not been scheduled.

Asked about this unscheduled meeting, the White House Official
Representative Ben Rhodes said at a briefing: "Really it was a matter
of just finding a time. There’s obviously a very busy schedule here,
47 leaders and a full schedule of meetings around the summit that
the President has to preside over. You know, at other gatherings
where he is not in the chair, for instance, it’s possible for him
to do more bilateral meetings. But because of his role as the host
of this summit it’s very important for him to lead the discussions
throughout the two days.

But we very much wanted to have this opportunity to consult with Prime
Minister Erdogan. There’s a range of pressing issues that the United
States and Turkey are working together on, and I would anticipate
that they discuss the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan; that they
would discuss non-proliferation issues broadly, as well as the need
for Iran to live up to its obligations. And I would expect that they
would discuss the ongoing effort to pursue normalization of relations
between Turkey and Armenia, which the United States strongly supports.