27 June 2004
Bush Has Productive Meetings in Turkey, Senior Official Says
President meets with Turkish government, religious leaders
By David Anthony Denny
Washington File Staff Writer
Istanbul, Turkey — President George Bush had “very good meetings” with
Turkey’s president and prime minister in Ankara June 27, according to a
senior administration official.
Briefing the press on background at the Conrad Hotel, the official said that
Bush’s meetings with Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdowan “show that from this moment forward, Turkey sees its
aims in Iraq as parallel and consistent with” the United States. The
official said the leaders discussed territorial integrity of Iraq, and Bush
said the subject was of critical importance to the United States.
The leaders also talked about PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) terrorists,
which operates out of Kurdish-occupied northern Iraq. Bush agreed that the
PKK is a terrorist organization, and said the United States wants to work
with Turkey to combat the group.
Bush expressed sympathy over the three Turkish workers kidnapped in Iraq
recently, the senior official said. Bush told the Turkish leaders that the
kidnapping “demonstrates the kind of enemies we’re dealing with” — those
who “seek to export chaos” to Iraq and elsewhere. International community
needs to unite to combat this threat, according to the senior official.
On the subject of Cyprus, which is now in its 30th year of division into
Greek and Turkish enclaves, Bush thanked Turkey for its “extraordinary”
efforts, the senior administration official said. United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan had come up with a good plan to end the division, and the
Turkish government and Turkish Cypriots “did a lot to promote this plan,”
though it was rejected by Greek Cypriots, the official said.
The U.S. and Turkish officials also discussed the Broader Middle East
Initiative, the senior official said. He noted that Erdogan had gone to the
Group of Eight summit in Sea Island, Georgia, to support the initiative.
Turkey’s a secular democracy with a Muslim majority, the official said, and
while perhaps not a model for the entire Middle East, the country
demonstrates that secular democracy can flourish in a Muslim society.
After leaving the Turkish capital and flying to Istanbul, Bush met with
several of the ancient city’s religious leaders, said the senior official.
Included in the group were the government’s general director of religious
affairs, an Islamic mufti, the chief rabbi, and Assyrian, Armenian, and
Greek Orthodox metropolitans. He said the meeting with religious leaders
also went very well. Its purpose was to recognize the contributions to the
city’s life by religious minority groups, some of which have been part of
Istanbul for centuries.
Afterward, Bush met with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. This
was, in the senior official’s words, “a terrific meeting.” He added that the
Summit was “closing in on a number of really strong” positive
accomplishments. He predicted that they may include:
— A NATO statement announcing agreement on training mission in Iraq,
containing a positive answer to last week’s request from Iraqi Prime
Minister Ayad Alawi for NATO to train Iraqi troops;
— Expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for
Afghanistan, moving outside of Kabul with Provincial Reconstruction Teams
(PRT’s).
— An Istanbul Declaration on how NATO’s expanding to meet challenges of
21st century;
— A NATO contribution to President Bush’s Broader Middle East Initiative;
and
— NATO will mark the coming termination of its mission in Bosnia after nine
years.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information
Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: )