With the US bowing to Turkey's insistence on punitive action against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, the two nations can look forward to a more harmonious encounter at summit talks this week.
US President George W. Bush is set to welcome his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul to the White House tomorrow morning, shortly before Bush leaves for the Middle East on his first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The leaders are expected to discuss Turkey's long-running bid to join the EU, an aspiration warmly backed by the US in the face of resistance from some EU powerbrokers such as France.
And with Bush seeking to revitalize Middle East peace talks, Turkey's influence with Israel and Arab states will also figure in Gul's Washington talks, as will Iran's nuclear ambitions, the State Department said.
It will be Gul's debut trip to Washington since the Islamist politician took over as Turkey's president in August.
Since then, Turkish opinion has been inflamed by deadly cross-border attacks from northern Iraq by the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and by a push in the US Congress to accuse the old Ottoman Empire of "genocide."
But on both fronts, Turkey's government has grounds for satisfaction as the two presidents bid to reinvigorate the oft-strained partnership between the US and its Muslim-majority NATO ally.
Mark Parris, a former US ambassador to Turkey, said the breakthrough came in November when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan enjoyed a "meeting of minds" with Bush in Washington at the bloody height of the PKK raids.
"Bush used for the first time the expression `common enemy,' which elevated the perceived threat posed by the PKK to US interests," said Parris, an expert on Turkey at the Brookings Institution.
Bush promised Erdogan real-time US intelligence on PKK guerrilla movements across the mountainous border between Turkey and Iraq, and the US acquiesced to Turkish air raids on rebel redoubts.
In return, Parris claims, the Turkish military promised to limit civilian casualties, to eschew overnight stays on Iraqi soil and to avoid actions that could destabilize Iraq more broadly.
Late last month, Gul told the Anatolia news agency that the US support "befits our alliance" and added: "This is how it should be. We could have come to this point earlier."
Ahmet Davutoglu, Erdogan's chief foreign policy adviser, said the joint work against the PKK since the Washington visit has done much to mend US-Turkish fences.
"The Turkish-American cooperation is bearing fruit, we're satisfied with it," he said on Wednesday.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS