Talking Turkey in Ankara
By Aussiegirl
Secretary Rice is wasting no time on her 8-day, ten-stop "if-this-is-Warsaw-it-must-be-Friday" whirlwind tour of Europe and the Middle East, laying down the law to Russia and handing out pocket atlases to geographically challenged reporters. In a stopover on her way to Ankara, where she will also meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, she made the following statements, leaving little doubt as to the intentions of the Bush administration to implement in concrete actions the far reaching goals put forth in the Inaugural and SOTU speeches.
"Obviously we have concerns ... it is important that Russia make clear to the world that it is intent on strengthening the rule of law, strengthening the role of an independent judiciary, permitting a free and independent press," Rice told a news conference in Warsaw, during a stopover en route to Turkey.
"These are all the basics of democracy." Rice also said that Moscow needed to support democratic trends in its neighborhood, an apparent reference to last year's U.S. clash with Russia over rigged elections in Ukraine. "This is not just about democratic developments in Russia. It is about democratic developments in the whole of Europe and all of the neighbors of Russia,"
... Last year, the United States began voicing its concern over what it called Russia's "backsliding," and during a 10-stop, eight-day tour of Europe and the Middle East Rice said she would keep expressing those concerns in hopes of improving ties.
posted by Aussiegirl @ 5:35 PM
2 Comments:
I watched the Rice stop in Turkey on Al-Jazeera today and in the Arab world the two main concerns were Rice's attempt to build a "united front" against Iran, and the issue of Kurdish terrorism. On the Iran issue, Erdogan stated that this was out of the question, as Turkey fully supported Iran's right to a peaceful nuclear energy program. That sort of dodges the issue, since Iran's program isn't peace, and palpably so. Iran has the world's largest natural gas reserves and its third largest oil reserves, while it actually costs them more to build and maintain those 15+ reactors than to import the nuclear fuel they are missing.
As to the issue of Kurdish terrorism, the Turks have a legitimate concern, but they blew their chance to try and manage events by refusing to help with the invasion of Iraq even when it should have been clear that it was inevitable. Right now we have a problem with many Iraqi Kurds demanding independence, and Turkey needs to either get engaged in helping out in Iraq or find its concerns taken as seriously as they took the suffering of the Iraqi people under Saddam Hussein.
I was once a strong believer in the potential of a U.S.-Turkey alliance to protect our common interests in Central Asia, but I've pretty much lost hope in that, and these issues just reinforce that impression.
Kirk, thanks for those informative comments on the reaction in the Arab world - and who would know better than you.
As to Turkey's failure to allow us strategic access through the North of Iraq at the last moment before the invasion, I had read some time after that that France (and perhaps Germany) had basically told Turkey if it cooperated with the United States that it would be denied entry into the EU -- so Turkey made its choice, which of course hampered out war plan as it involved a northern front as an integral part of the plan. Had you heard anything similar?
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