Ambassador's remarks and public events

Ambassador Wilson’s Press Interview

Hilton Hotel, Istanbul
February 7, 2007

Ambassador Wilson:  I’m delighted to be back in Istanbul for a couple of days.  I’m here having meetings on all kinds of different things today and tomorrow. In the afternoon tomorrow we’ll have the first part of meetings of our Economic Partnership Commission, U.S. and Turkey.  This is the business part of it.  A business forum with a group that is put together -- that DEIK has put together -- and then a separate session with the American Business Forum in Turkey, to talk a little bit more specifically about some of their issues. 

And then we’ll go to Ankara in the evening and have a day of government meetings.  Actually, a day and a half of government meetings, Friday and Saturday morning.  But I wanted to take advantage of being here to get together with you.  We’re at a very busy and very interesting time, I think, in U.S. -Turkey relations.  There are a heap of things going on and, I think, reflecting the fact that there is a lot going on or reflecting the importance we attach to the relationship and that Turkish authorities attach to the relationship.  You have got a succession of visits.  Minister Gonul last week. Minister Gul this week. General Buyukanit next week.  There are a couple of different parliamentarian groups, parliamentarians that are being talked about.  And in my perspective it is invaluable, it is very timely. And the more sort of conversations like that, that can take place I think between our respective leaders, the better off  we’ll be to handle things the right way.  Anyway, rather than filibuster, I will be happy to try to respond to some of your questions. 

Question:  Small question:  Did our Prime Minister ask for an appointment from the White House?

Ambassador: No, not to the best of my knowledge. 

Question: Our government tries to tell about our concerns.  For example, the Armenian question.  For example the Cyprus question. For example the PKK question.  What are your concerns pertaining to Turkey about the American red lines?

Ambassador Wilson:  Well, I am not sure I want to particularly talk in public about our red lines on key issues.  A lot of that, that is not for public conversation.  Clearly we understand that Minister Gonul, Minister Gul, General Buyukanit and others have some specific interests and the specific issues are of great interest to them.  The fate of this resolution, the Armenian resolution, the Congress being obviously very high on Turkey’s list at the moment.  But there are other topics that we assume Minister Gul especially would want to talk with Secretary Rice about.  Iraq and its various subsets, PKK, Kirkuk, the general state of affairs there and the strategy, the way forward.  And I have thought since I arrived here, and I believe that this view is shared in Washington, that U.S. and Turkish -- the approaches of the United States and Turkey toward Iraq have an immense amount in common.  We want the same things fundamentally.  We haven’t entirely been able to get there for a whole different variety of reasons.  But there is a lot of commonality.  So it is a matter of figuring out how we can work together on the issues where we agree, and how we deal with the issues where maybe we agree a little bit less.

Clearly, a second issue for us, and I believe also for Minister Gul, is Iran.  Some of this is making sure that we both have a similar understanding on where we are in a diplomatic process to try to persuade the Iranians to change their course.  What are the next steps that are coming up?  So that we can work most effectively together.  There too, we have had, and Secretary Rice and Minister Gul had, very good exchanges on this, going back to the first meeting after I arrived here.

Q:  Do you feel that Turkey is closer to Iran than before?

Ambassador Wilson: No, quite the contrary.  I believe there was a growing realization throughout the first few months of 2006.  Certainly, what I saw as a new ambassador, at least, was a growing realization on the part of the Turkish authorities that Iran is on the wrong course.  That a better understanding - and one of the facts that they have -- what we believe, what the IAEA believes, what most of the U.S. Security Council believes -- clear nuclear weapons ambitions that are, that we all regard as dangerous.  And so then, strong and very useful work by Gul personally, by Turkey with the Iranians to try to convince them to change course.  Not successful, but a lot of people have been working on this.  Hopefully, some of them get success. 

And then I expect that there is probably also some conversation about the Middle East.  There we sometimes have some different perspectives, including on issues like engagement with Syria.  The Secretary is looking toward, as was discussed at the noon briefing at the State Department yesterday, a meeting between Secretary Rice, Prime Minister Olmert, President Abbas in a place to be determined around the 19^th of February.  And clearly, getting those kinds of peace talks reestablishes something that Turkey has been urging for a long time.  I would assume they had a good conversation about that as well.

Question:  Is that planned for the 19^th February?

Ambassador Wilson: Sean McCormack said the 19^th, he did not say where.

Question: Who, Rice?

Ambassador:  What McCormack referred to, the staff here could get you the transcript, which is basically most of what I know. He referred to the 19^th.  He said Prime Minister Olmert, President Abbas and Secretary Rice.

Question:  And Mr. Olmert is going to come next week to Ankara, the fifteenth. Will Turkey be involved somewhere?

Ambassador Wilson: I can’t answer that question.  It was not described that way.

Question: Today, there was a news article in the papers.  According to the media, the chairman of the German Marshall fund, the Brussels head of the German Marshall Fund, made a statement and said if Iraq dissolves, that will have negative impact on Turkey and the best way in case this happens will be to deploy NATO forces in Northern Iraq.

Ambassador Wilson: Well, I don’t know exactly the remarks you are referring to.  I take your words at face value.  People in those kinds of positions are in a position to speculate what might happen if.  We generally tend to be rather cautious when speculating about hypothetical situations.  Our clear policy is unity of Iraq.  We don’t want a separated Iraq. And the President is determined that the Iraq that emerges from all of these difficulties that it is going through will be a unified country, which is not in anyway to denigrate the relationship that we have with the Kurdistan Regional Government in the north.  We deal with that government -- we deal with the government of Iraq in the first instance because they are in charge of the whole country.  But among the authorities of Iraq are the authorities of the KRG, having said that the priority is a unified country within its previously existing borders.

Question:  When last week or ten days ago, Kirkuk was an issue and Mr. Khalilzad has said that it is up to the Iraqi constitution and the referendum will be held.  But two days ago I have heard from some of the speakers of the State Department, making some comments that it may be delayed, this referendum. What is the latest position of the U.S. on this referendum?

What is the reason for insistence on that  --it is very much debated and there are a lot of suggestions from the outside world…. there would be some kind of delay.

Ambassador Wilson: The latest position of the United States is the same position that we had for some time, that this is one of many internal Iraqi issues that the Iraqi people have to deal with.  And that outsiders, including the United States, should not be dictating to them, or telling them do this or don’t do that.  It is for them to resolve.  I recognize it is a very sensitive issue.  There are a lot of Iraqis, maybe most Iraqis recognize that is a very sensitive issue, in terms of how it gets handled.  At the time that the government was formed and at the beginning of 2006 they agreed upon a procedure for constitutional amendments, or to examine constitutional amendments.  And I believe I remember this right, language talked about a four month period that should have started in April or so when the government actually was formed.  To consider changes. Well, in the way that Iraq works a lot of things get delayed that conversation I know, certainly hasn’t produced a result, as yet.  Many observers thought that issues related to Kirkuk might be among that [inaudible]. But there are plenty of others as well, that are equally sensitive for Iraq’s political future.  What they may decide to do I can’t tell you. Will they change the constitution?  If they do change the constitution, will this issue on article 140 be one of the things that they look at or change?  Or for that matter, if they don’t change their constitution, will the referendum take place in exact accordance with the provisions of that constitution?   Those are all unknowns and unknowable at this point. Our clear position is it is for Iraqis to decide, that is kind of the…

Question:  But we know how the U.S. is involved.  And outsiders say how deeply U.S. is involved in Iraq.  Let me put it this way then, is there in any way, a possibility that the United States might exercise its influence to say at least, to advise, to play a certain role there, taking into consideration the great consequences that certainly Washington is aware of, if the referendum is held [inaudible].

Ambassador Wilson: I’ll give you an answer that is not as specific as what you want.

Question: It’s not a good answer then. [Laughter]

Ambassador Wilson: It is the answer I am going to use.  President Bush in his new strategy speech, in early January, talked about the importance of the Iraqi leadership taking decisions on issues that were important to reconciliation among the people of Iraq. And he talked about, he identified several examples. The oil law, and passing that law that provides some assurances about where revenues go and then that they are shared by all the Iraqi people, debaathification legislation - very sensitive in big parts of the Sunni community, municipal elections - also important to the particular Sunni community that didn’t take part in the previous elections.  It would be reasonable to say he was speaking illustratively of the kinds of steps that the Iraqis need to take a look at, to deal with reconciliation and push the country in those kinds of directions.  That is the kind of advice that we are providing them.  You need to resolve this, you need to resolve it in a way that gets at reconciliation. But what that resolution specifically looks like on any of the issues that President Bush identified or any others, oil law, debaathification, municipal elections, the specifics of the solution is for them to determine, not us.  That isn’t the way we are [inaudible] ourselves.

Question: When you give that advice, to whom do you give that advice? To the Iraqi government or to the Regional Kurdish Administration?

Ambassador Wilson:  Our Embassy and our Ambassador there are in touch with the widest possible range of Iraqi leaders that you can imagine.  All over the parliament, regional leaders, not just in the northern part of the country, but elsewhere as well.  They are trying to talk to everybody.

Question:  Let’s stay on Iraq for a while, not Kirkuk, but let’s go north, the northern part.  Now the dialogue on the PKK, there has been a lot of talk on this, and you certainly know how sensitive the Turkish Government, Turkish public, Turkish political parties are on this issue.  So there is, in fact, here.. there is a lot of talk, but nothing has been done.  Nothing concrete has so far been done.  And there, it is turning more into a dialogue of the deaf.  Now we keep our fingers crossed on Foreign Minister Gul’s visit to Washington.  That this might not be the case, the sign that we may have.  Foreign Minister Gul says that he is encouraged in a way by what he heard.  And what he heard was also the expression of some kind of regret, as he puts it.  From “mahcup,” sort of embarrassed.  The Administration officials he talked to seemed to be embarrassed by the expression.  But anyway, my question is, what really can we expect, in the days and weeks ahead, still the same kind of dialogue with players always saying, well, the same thing?  Playing the old record?  Or why first of all, we know that the U.S. has good intentions and wants to resolve this problem.  But so far since nothing has happened, it means that things are failing now.  Why do you think that the U.S. is failing, why is it failing to carry out the various promises that have been made, whether it is Washington, officially, whether it’s General Ralston, since then, I mean, we want to see something that will appease this sort of tension, and this sort of impatience that we see in public opinion as well, as well as in your own official check list?

Question: I have a follow up, General Baser told recently when there was a discussion between the Prime Minister and him.  I see a small light in the end of the tunnel, and you will see very soon some concrete things to happen.  Do Belgium and France operations have any relations with that coordinating business?   In France and in Belgium there is an operation against PKK economic resources. Does it have any relation coordinator at PKK?

Question: Existence of PKK in northern Iraq, is it an internal affair of northern Iraq?

Ambassador:  Is your question do we regard the issue in that light? 

Question: Yes

Ambassador Wilson: You very eloquently described, I think in your question, the frustration that I hear and have heard, if not quite daily, very regularly, ever since I have arrived here just over a year ago on the PKK issue, and I appreciate that. Having personally taken part in most of the, although not all of the meetings that General Baser and General Ralston have had, they met once in Stuttgart, I wasn’t part of that, and briefly here, and I wasn’t part of that either. But I have been in all the meetings in Ankara. It is not a dialogue of the deaf. It is not a dialogue of the deaf.  Which is not to say that we do not continue to hear, in what the Turkish authorities tell us, continued and very serious frustration that more visible action has not been taken.  But it is not a dialogue of the deaf and I think that is important to note. 

Second, what to expect in the coming period.  In the nature of the way one deals with international terrorists, you don’t generally telegraph to them what you are planning to do.  And therefore, I am not going to do that here, certainly not with any specifics. 

What we are doing is what we have said many times we would work to try to do.  Support Turkey in going after the PKK in Turkey. We have provided a great deal of information that has been directly helpful to the Turkish authorities.  Namik Tan spoke on this last summer at some point, as I recall.  Helping Turkey go after the PKK in Europe, this gets to your point about the Belgians and the French.  When we started this effort in about September- October 2005 there were people who said this is just a side show.  United States is just doing this because it is not prepared to do something in northern Iraq, and so will keep us busy on this for a while.  Well the truth of the matter is that over a year and a half, European attitudes have changed.  One European government in one of their confidential internal reports described the PKK as the biggest terrorist problem in Europe after Al Qaeda.

Question: It was also in a European Union Report

Ambassador Wilson: Maybe they have said [that,] I don’t know. I am referring to a confidential report by one of the larger European governments that we deal with on this.  They would not have said that two years ago or five years ago or ten years ago.  And although we want definitely to see more, I would relate the steps the Germans took, just a several weeks ago, the French took in the last couple of days, I gather the Belgians have also done something quite recently.  These things are connected and I think they are producing results.  It is part, at least in the general sense,  of what General Ralston is working on, although because this effort had started before and was working well and producing results, he has given a little bit more time to some other aspects, other aspects of the problem.  I can’t say, you know, in three days or three weeks, or three months, or any specific time in the future that there is going to be something that will be a big headline in your newspapers. that will convince the Turkish, will show to the Turkish people what General Ralston promised, visible action.  I certainly hope there is a visible action.  If I had to make a choice between visible and effective, I would go for the latter.  I think that there is a very, very strong and unified political will in Washington now, to produce that kind of result and to work on it in real time.  Beyond that, I am not sure I can go. You started to ask a question, I’m sorry.

Question:  Can we write that recent operations can be considered as a result of the coordinator?

Ambassador Wilson: Yes. The recent activities are a result of the United States’ close work with Turkey, and with our European friends, to get the attitudes changed and to focus attention on the terrorist threat and the organized crime threat that the PKK poses to European interests, in addition to the dangers that they pose for Turkey.

Question:  On this issue of PKK in northern Iraq, Turkey has always addressed its frustrations, complaints, its requests to the United States.  You have said at the beginning that the U.S. [inaudible] is an outsider, so since that Ankara considers the U.S. presence in Iraq more than an outsider, and relies on the United States.

Ambassador Wilson: We don’t dictate to the Iraqis.  That is what I was saying.

Question: So for Ankara the address is Washington.  The U.S. should deal with this question of PKK.  As you know, there is a lot of debate going on in Turkey, whether this policy with Turkey should take the bull by the horns itself, whether it should perhaps cooperate with the local authorities in northern Iraq or the Iraqi government.  You think that being the recipient of those complaints and those requests embarrasses you, or would you like Turkey also to channel that kind of request to the Iraqi government or also to Barzani administration.  Or would that be a wrong address?

Ambassador Wilson: I don’t want to deal with the issues about being embarrassed, but we have for a long time – again, since well before I came here --  encouraged Turkey to work together with us and with the Iraqis to find a collaborative way together to deal with this problem.  “The Iraqis” means in the first instance the authorities in Baghdad. They are responsible for the whole country.  As a practical matter, some dialogue with the authorities in the north also seems like part of a solution to this problem.  And so, on the US- Turkey-Iraq plane, we’ve had this trilateral mechanism that didn’t really produce very much when it began a couple of years ago.  We talked about the possibility of a trilateral meeting when General Ralston was here last week and the week before as something we want to try to aim for, when it is the right thing to do and when it can produce results.  We don’t want another meeting, just to have a meeting, we want one that produces results, ant that’s -  it is not the only solution to the problem. But we think it is part of the solution.

Question: As a follow-up on PKK.  You said that you are having, witnessing very concrete steps taken by European countries, some of the leaders are being caught in European capitals, now I guess we will be discussing, whether it will be possible to extradite them back to Turkey.  And the second one, what kind of contribution America will have in that case, in the extradition process of PKK leaders from European capitals? And second, if Belgium and France is able to catch those terrorist leaders, why not it is possible for America to catch some of the leaders who are residing in Northern Iraq?  It will be visible and maybe an effective action.  Because people are starting to ask that question.

Ambassador Wilson: On the second part…. About the only useful thing I can say is, in France or in Belgium or in Germany those governments exercise police power within the confines of their national territory.  Whatever we are doing in Iraq, we are not exercising police power throughout that country and therefore our capabilities are significantly different than the national governments of Belgium, France or Germany or the others.  Within their territories of the [inaudible].

On extradition, one of a number of avenues that we have been working to try to assist the Turkish government on through this part of this European-focused aspect of our PKK approach, is to try to help the government, the Turkish government to strengthen its legal case to the European governments to get people extradited.  These people that have been picked up are not the first ones. Of course it has happened before. When you --  the treaties that exist between governments provide for certain criteria for extradition to be carried out. They provide for judicial, usually a very senior level approval and then a judicial review of that decision.  When you submit a request you kind of want to know that is going to be legally sustained all the way through the process and there is plenty of evidence behind it.  And from what we heard, from what European government in years past, the request of the Turkish government didn’t always have sufficient evidence to sustain the case for extradition at the end of the day, especially through the court. So how could we help and help Turkey to develop its evidence better? It has evidence, we deal with European law enforcement authorities on a lot and a lot of different things [inaudible] the advice and assistance we could provide.  Some of our prosecutors and experts met with Turkish authorities last year, a couple of times. Turkish, American and European prosecutors met to continue this conversation just a week or two ago.  And that meeting, I think, was reported; we put out a press report about those discussions.  It is something we are interested in.  Extradition has a high evidentiary standard in most countries, including in Europe.  And the challenge is to come up with it.  And often in these terrorism cases you may not have that evidence, certainly not the evidence that you use in court.  That is a global problem that affects the way that governments deal with terrorism.  It is an issue that we have been struggling with.  It has been a problem for Turkey as well.

Question:  How about the extradition of PKK guys in northern Iraq?

Ambassador Wilson: Well, if you want me to answer the question narrowly, specifically on extradition, first you’ve got to get them arrested, detained, whatever, and second you’ve got to make use of the treaty that exists between the two countries. 

Question: Is that also in the pipeline. Is that planned?

Ambassador Wilson: First, we would have to get our hands on the people.

Question: Sorry?

Ambassador: First, we would have to get our hands on the people.

Question:  Yes, you haven’t missed, you know who they are.

Ambassador Wilson: We know who they are.

Question: What is holding you back?

Question:  Not enough police force in northern Iraq.  This is the reason

Ambassador Wilson: No, no, no when I referred to police I was making a distinction between the ability of European governments [inaudible] of these people, I don’t want to go any further on this. I don’t want to mislead you.  And I don’t want to paint the picture that there is something out there imminent, either. It is an interesting subject for us, and we will try to follow it.

Question: And last night when I was watching a Turkish TV program, there was this person, a Turkey watcher, working as an expert at the Brookings institution, and he came up with the idea that certain people in Washington started to get concerned and worried about Turkey’s strategic leaning toward Russia and their closer cooperation.  And people have started asking if one day Turkey following the “DeGaulle” model in France 1967, when he declared that France was going out of NATO, and would follow a more independent and more national policy.  ‘Will Turkey do it,” they asked themselves, he said. And I was shocked.  Do people ask themselves these questions in Washington?

AMBASSADOR WILSON: No, no. 

Question: How do they make it up?

Ambassador Wilson: In no circles that I talked to in Washington, and I’ve talked to people at Brookings, I don’t know who that is, but no, nobody is asking that question. You should ask that individual. It is easy to speculate about things.

Question:  We may go, if you don’t mind, to another question.  Ms. Pelosi, she told me even if the Armenian Genocide will go to Congress, the relations between Turkey and the United States won’t deteriorate. What do you think as an ambassador?

Ambassador Wilson:  Obviously, I have a lot of respect for the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  From my perspective here, the passage of this resolution will be harmful to our interests in this country and with this country.  And in part, on that basis, there are other reasons as well, why the President, this president, his predecessor and his predecessor’s predecessor have opposed resolutions of this kind.

Question: I guess there is a general mood, as if there will be no way out, to prevent this resolution this time. What is your psychology in that? Foreign Minister Gul yesterday underlined that we don’t accept that kind of recognition, that there is no way out to prevent that resolution.  What is your expectation?

Ambassador Wilson: Here is how I would describe, what I see, recognizing I am here, I am not in Washington.  One, I don’t believe in inevitabilities; we live in a rapidly changing world and circumstances change and perceptions change.  Two, the politics of this issue in the United States are significantly different from the last time this issue was taken on in a serious way.  The White House and the Congress are in different hands, the influence that the White House may have on an issue like this with the leadership of Congress is different then it used to be.  It was always the case that the outcome is uncertain, the President cannot tell Congress on this kind of matter what to do and not to do.  He could tell them, but they don’t have to listen. They are an independent branch of government that can make their own decisions.  But the circumstances in which Armenia finds itself isolated from Azerbaijan, but especially from Turkey, it is pressure on them to change course.  Our policy for many years has been to encourage reconciliation and regional integration, but we still think that is good. We encourage the Armenians in that direction, we encourage the Azeris in that direction and we are working through the Minsk Group process, to try to resolve the Nagorno – Karabakh dispute, and we encourage Turkey to support that and move ahead with its own reconciliation and normalization of relations with Armenia as well. 

Question: ….The word genocide should be pronounced, that’s not binding, the President can go out of the way and say whatever he said last year. That is a fact.  Now in the worst case scenario what would be practically happening from the U.S. perspective, [inaudible] the administration, it will not consider that binding?  After all, you have a president who is not going to be president again he hasn’t got this political motivation, to change his rhetoric.  But on the other hand of course there will be a lot of reaction in Turkey, as you can imagine.  In that case what would you for instance suggest to the administration?  I understand you will be going soon to Washington.  And in that case, I mean, what’s your advice to Turkey.? What would you like Turkey to do, in addition to showing that reaction?

Ambassador Wilson: First, as a legal principal, resolutions of this kind have no legal effect, like a law. They are not binding on the President. Again, our constitution rests the primary authority for foreign policy in the president. Not in the Congress.  Congress has… if it passes this, or one house or the other passes it, it is expressing its view.  And that is important, but it is not the same as describing what U.S. policy is.  Second, well, what in the first instance what Turkey should do is what it is doing.  Senior people, government, the broader government so to speak, business leaders, civic leaders, people like you, going and talking to people, and describe to them why do you think this is a bad idea. Describe to members of Congress why you think this is a bad idea.  We have, as you know, and as the president says every year in his Armenian Remembrance Day messages, called for reconciliation and dialogue between Turkey and Armenia.  So, it stands to reason that all of the actions that Turkey can take that aim toward dialogue or suggest the possibilities of dialogue and reconciliation with Armenians and with Armenia itself.  Those are good things.  And those are things we are encouraging.  There are other specific steps that we have discussed in diplomatic channels that the government could take or consider; I don’t want to characterize those too much.  But the key thing, I think, that I would want to say publicly is moving toward reconciliation, understanding, dialogue with Armenia and with Armenians on this.  The government put forward a good proposal in 2005; we supported it at the time.  There have been fruitful efforts since then, to bring that to a conclusion.  We hope that happens, because it is that kind of commission that the Prime Minister proposed on history, maybe some other [inaudible] with other issues in relation, that sets an emotional process that gets at what I think the largest number of Members of Congress, whether they support this resolution or they don’t support this resolution, really like to see on this matter.

Question: But there is this problem, Mr. Oskanyan, it was last month I think, he made a statement saying if someday we start a dialogue with Turkey, we will never put genocide as a precondition on the table, he said.  But nothing happened from Ankara.   How do you perceive this?

Ambassador Wilson:  I don’t think that Mr. Oskanyan’s statement, although it is an important statement, would summarize everything that is going on in this issue. There was press reporting of Deputy Foreign Minister Kirakosian’s visit here at the time of Hrant Dink’s funeral and a little bit of reference to the discussions he had afterwards.  That is a positive, those are positive steps.  I don’t know where they will lead, or what the timeframe would be.  As I was trying to say, the gestures that Turkey is making here are the right kinds of gestures, and you asked what was my advice to Turkey?  Keep at it. Keep trying to make that happen. 

Question: This does not impress very much the people on the Hill, they still stick to the idea of passing the resolution. Again, to come back to that bad scenario, if that is what is going to happen, what have we got to do to avoid a crisis in U.S. – Turkish relations?  After you manage that question., sorry I have a follow up you said it is against our interest, can you more give concrete headlines? Which interests?

Ambassador Wilson: How to avoid problems. You are asking me to speculate about a state of affairs that depends on this actually coming to a road.  And I am not sure I want to go down that particular road.  Clearly, I am concerned about the impact in our ability to work with Turkey on issues that are extremely important to my country and to Turkey.  I don’t want to see our ability to work together effectively with this country on a lot of issues diminish. Because obviously they are important to my people and they are very important to Turkey’s people.  Whether it is the PKK, or [inaudible] or speaking of anything else in Iraq, same with Afghanistan, same with terrorism, same with the Middle East, same with Cyprus, same with Turkey’s effort to get into the European Union.  We need each other; we need to be able to continue to work together and, frankly speaking, my view is whatever happens on this, the President will strongly oppose this measure. Whatever happens, we have got to continue to be able to work together effectively.  What I worry about specifically – again, I am not sure I want to get too far into that.  But I have given you thoughts on Iraq, Iran the Middle East, Cyprus, the EU…the list is long.  We work together very closely on a whole range of issues that are important to us and are important to Turkey. And they are really important to Turkey’s interests.  And we, I want to preserve that and I want to be sure, as I said whatever it is that happens that we, as much as we can, that we continue to be able to work together.

Question: When you talk to Turks on [inaudible] from political circles, what do you think about our priorities on foreign policy? PKK, Cyprus, EU membership, relations with America, Iran and Turkey?  How do you report to Washington this country’s priorities that…

Ambassador Wilson: I will answer your question in a somewhat different way. When I had my confirmation hearing in November 2005 the first question, there were four of us there, a fellow going to Cyprus, a woman going to Iceland, another woman going to Finland who had a Turkish connection, she knows President Demirel quite well, and me.  And the first question that they asked was, describe your number one priority, kind of a back-handed way to get your question, describe your number one priority. Well my counterpart in Cyprus [inaudible] Sleeker said, “well my number one priority is to work toward a settlement of the Cyprus problem.” Our candidate going to Iceland said “my number one problem is dealing with the closure of our F16 squadron that existed there for decades and that we were working to close.” Our Ambassador to Finland had a harder time, but she referred to - because we don’t really have those kinds of issues in our relations with Finland - she referred to Finland’s EU Presidency that at that point was seven or eight months in the future of working together effectively with Finland and her ability to work together with Finland to accomplish things of interest to us, with the EU.  And I said, I think I was the last to answer this, and I said well, my number one priority is to juggle a whole lot of different balls [laughter] and juggle a whole lot of different balls and keep them in the air and move forward with them.  The way I look at Turkish foreign policy is there are a whole bunch of things that are important, because this country is in, and the leadership finds itself, in a pretty awful neighborhood.  You know, on most days what the Foreign Minister says to us is Iraq is either our number one priority, or very, very close to it.  And wouldn’t you know, that is probably our number one priority, too.  But he is not saying, the others are not important.  That is probably the best answer I can give you.  There are a whole bunch of different things that I see that are very important to Turkey.  And that we are trying to work on. 

Question:  As an American diplomat, do you see any possibility in the future that Turkey will become a European Union member? Do you see any hope?

Ambassador Wilson:  I see lots of hope.  And I am being very honest here.  I see lots of hope in Turkey being in the EU.  I don’t think it will be real soon.  I think the goal in the documents that the EU approved was 2013 or 2014.  That seems ambitious to me, in part because Turkey has a very ambitious reform agenda on economic issues, on political issues.  Some are military issues, some are social issues, and a variety of others.  And in part, I think that is going to take time.  And it especially will take time, for a second reason - European politics are dynamic too.  It is not a static situation, some people talk about moving goal posts. Of course they are moving, the whole playing field is moving, that is, Europe is not just going to stay where it was when the initial decisions about Turkey were taken several years ago. It moves on.  So the whole playing field moves.  And in addition to that, if you know this at least as well as I do, there are strongly held views in a number of European Union member countries, a number of states, that don’t support Turkey’s membership.  Austria is over 80% opposed, France is not quite as bad percentage-wise, but it is a strongly held view among other people…Germany, there are several other governments. It will take time to change those attitudes, just as it will take time to change attitudes here necessary to carry out the reforms that will make this a sustainable thing.  Having said all those things, I am fairly optimistic about it.  If Turkey continues to articulate clearly the case of why that is important and keep after the reform agenda.  I think the European governments will, as many of them do now, understand why it is in their interest to have a strong, stable and secure country on Europe’s far south east borders in this tricky and dangerous neighborhood.  And also, to have in the Union this very dynamic society, rapidly growing economy, very young - you have got a lot of economies in Europe that are not rapidly growing, and that are aging. They need the vigor that Turkey could provide. 

Question: You said that you are not, that you are against, but do you think that Turkey will intervene to Kirkuk? What is your impression on the issue? Cross border action, intervention. 

[discussion among journalists] – Kirkuk is 450 miles away..Any possibility of a cross-border operation?  Can you give…… there is a discussion about this military intervention. What is your impression in Ankara, as an American Ambassador?

Ambassador Wilson: I don’t want to characterize my observation as describing what is Turkey’s position.  Turkish officials should do that.  What I see is a readiness to work with us and work with the Iraqis, collaboratively to resolve this, problem.

Question: If Turkey would engage in a cross border action --

Ambassador Wilson: I won’t answer a hypothetical question

Question: …Will that be tolerated in Washington?

Ambassador Wilson: I’m not going to answer a hypothetical question.

Question: You served in Baku. You know all the details and dimensions of Armenian-Azerbaijan [inaudible].  Recently, one of the members of the European parliament were saying that there should be some pressure on Armenia in order to speed up the process of reconciliation.  Do you agree with that statement?

Ambassador Wilson: In general, or with respect to Azerbaijan?

Question: I mean [inaudible]  You know the occupation is continuing and there is no pressure on Armenia, always pressure on Turkey.

Ambassador Wilson: Here is the way I would describe it, and I talked about it this way when I was in Baku.  There is immense pressure right now on Armenia to achieve some measure of reconciliation with Azerbaijan and with Turkey.  It is not good for any economy to have to be landlocked and to be deprived of the logical trade connections with the rest of the world.  I have ridden on the road between Tbilisi and Yerevan and it is the worst road I have ever ridden on, anywhere.  And that is one of the principal trade lifelines.  Of course, the Armenians make their own decisions they have a democratic system and in any case they will make their own decisions.  But I think they are under a lot of pressure right now.

Question: There should be pressure on both sides.

Question: Tomorrow, the new series will be starting on TV, the Valley of Wolves.  But this one is about terror.

Ambassador Wilson: I know what I’ve seen in the papers, what I’ve seen is how violent it is, not a good picture for children…