BABACAN SET TO HAVE HIGH-LEVEL TALKS IN US VISIT
Today’s Zaman
June 3 2008
Turkey
During a bilateral working visit to the United States to last over a
week, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan is expected to meet with a number
of senior US officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Babacan was scheduled to depart from Ankara for Washington, D.C.,
late last night after Today’s Zaman went to print. In addition to
Cheney and Rice, the minister is also expected to meet with Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, diplomatic
sources said yesterday, although work was still under way to finalize
the program.
While in Washington Babacan will also meet with members of the US
Congress, opinion leaders and media representatives. Before departing
for New York next week, he will also deliver a speech at the Atlantic
Council of the United States.
Babacan’s visit will be the first senior-level visit from Ankara to
Washington after Turkey’s chief prosecutor presented a case to the
Constitutional Court in March to shut down the ruling Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) and ban its leaders from politics on
charges of it being a "focal point of anti-secular activities." Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and former AK Party member President
Abdullah Gul are among those the prosecutor seeks to ban from politics.
Ongoing cooperation between Ankara and Washington against activities
of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq as
well as a resolution calling World War I-era killings of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks "genocide" and passed by a US congressional committee
in October 2007 are among key topics to be covered in Babacan’s talks
in the US capital.
The United States has toughened its stance against the PKK, and
President George W. Bush declared the group a "common enemy" for
the United States, Turkey and Iraq at a meeting with Erdogan in
November. The Turkish military has been launching aerial strikes on
PKK targets in northern Iraq since Dec. 17, and the United States
supports Turkey’s anti-PKK efforts, providing intelligence about the
group and airspace clearance for Turkish jet fighters taking part
in the aerial operations. Troops were also sent to northern Iraq in
a major ground offensive against the PKK in February. In parallel
to the US-Turkish cooperation against the PKK, relations between
Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds, accused in the past by Turkish officials
of supporting the terrorist group, have also improved recently. Two
senior officials met with senior Iraqi Kurdish official Nechirvan
Barzani in May in the first direct high-level contact. Barzani recently
returned to northern Iraq from a key visit to Washington last month,
during which he met with Bush, Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates
and other senior administration officials.
While in New York, the minister will represent Turkey at a high-level
meeting hosted at United Nations headquarters on June 10-11. The
meeting will review progress made in implementing the 2001 Declaration
of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration on
HIV/AIDS.
Babacan’s next stop after New York will be the French capital, where
he will participate in an international conference aimed at raising
funds for Afghanistan and reviewing that strategy.
According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) figures released earlier this year, Afghanistan is among
countries receiving the most aid from Turkey in 2006, with Official
Development Assistance (ODA) of $43 million. International donors have
pledged some $24 billion at three donor conferences since 2002, but the
level of aid to Afghanistan is still many times lower per head than to
other countries emerging from conflict, such as Kosovo or East Timor.