AMBASSADOR'S REMARKS AND PUBLIC EVENTS

Ambassador Ross Wilson Interview with Fatih Altayli, Sabah Newspaper

Istanbul, April 3, 2006

Question: Let’s begin with the latest film, Valley of the Wolves, and the image problem of the United States in Turkey. Do you have some plans to correct your country’s image in Turkey?

Ambassador: Well, I think it’s part of the job of any ambassador, any diplomat, to work to try to improve the image of his or her country abroad. To try to improve understanding of, in my case, what the United States is trying to do in the world and what the United States is trying to do here. And at the same time to try to enhance cooperation, collaboration between our two countries, especially in a place like Turkey, an ally of the United States, a long term, a long time friend.

One of the things that I have stressed here is to talk with people a wide range of people and to listen to a wide range of people. Listen to what they have to say.  It’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here, aside from this interview.  Also, to listen to what you all as knowledgeable journalists can tell me about developments in Turkey, about the popular mood here on issues that are of interest to us.

It seems to me also important to work with our friends in this country. To ensure that there is a strong appreciation here of the importance of the U.S. – Turkish relationship and maintaining that relationship as a bulwark of support for Turkey for the role that Turkey plays in the region. For the role that the United States plays in the region. As a supporter of peace and prosperity here and of the common values that we have.  So my work is a combination of listening, of trying to work effectively with the government and trying to ensure that those who share the same values and interests that we do speak up on behalf of those values and those interests and speak up on behalf of a relationship that has served both our countries very well for a very long time.

Question: (inaudible) Turkish people know him very well. And maybe you stayed so far from media and from televisions, we can’t see you in news channels or in news programs, or newspaper interviews.

Ambassador:  It’s hard for me to imagine how I could be more active and do more of the media than I can. In fact I often ask myself whether I am doing too much. I am trying to do the best I can in the time that I have.  In my first months here I’ve had a whole bunch of things that I’ve had to try to do, including initial calls on people to start to establish relationships that I need to do my work. Through this visit here, through other visits to other newspapers and media organizations, I’ve tried to demonstrate that I want to reach out --  be open and accessible to the media, for you personally for this paper.  Anytime you wish to talk, anytime you wish to get our perspective on an issue we are available and I am available.

Question: Do you have latest information about the Guantanamo detainees, the Turkish ones?

Ambassador: To be honest, no I don’t. I’ve been traveling for about last ten days.  I left for the United States Saturday, a week ago.  I got back to Turkey Saturday night and turned around immediately Sunday morning to come here, so I don’t have up-to-date information, I am sorry.    

Question: Did you see today’s newspaper, our page?  We published an article about the possible Iranian threat against Incirlik airbase.

Ambassador: Somebody showed me the article and told me about it, yes.

Question: Do you believe it?

Ambassador: No.

Question: The Sunday Telegraph newspaper published it yesterday.

Ambassador: Here is the important thing about Iran. We are not planning, we are not working on a military solution to the problem of Iran’s efforts to attain nuclear weapons. We are working through diplomatic means with our friends and allies around the world. Especially with the so called EU3, with Russia, with China, with the Security Council, with the board and the International Atomic Energy collectively to try to persuade Iran to change. We don’t expect that it’s going to an immediate solution. We expect that it will take a certain amount of time.  We are not making plans for some contingencies that maybe are out there in some point in the future. The diplomatic path is the one we are on.

Question: But the Security Council gave you one month and at least for now it didn’t work.  Iran is rejecting any possible threat, any other United Nations resolution.

Ambassador: We hope that it will work. We are not engaged in this diplomacy as a sort of…this is not a game, it is not something that we are just doing because we feel we have to do it so that we can then do something else.  We are working in this way to try to achieve a successful solution.  It may take a little while.

Question: Did United States have any low level diplomatic relations for now with Iran? There is a foreign news story.  It was one of Mr., I forgot his name…about earthquake help.

Ambassador: There are couple of things I can tell you. We have a protecting power arrangement in Iran, I believe it’s the Polish Embassy that represents United States interests with respect to Iran. The Iranians, in turn, have used the Swiss Government as their channel for communications with us.  It tends to be a rather limited conversation, but it is not useless by any means.  Second, our Ambassador in Baghdad --- this was reported about two weeks ago  --- has for quite awhile had authorization from President Bush to meet with the Iranians in Iraq to discuss issues related to Iraq’s political future and security issues there.  This was made public I think last fall.  As I understand it, there were some feelers that were put out to the Iranians at that time.  Nothing ever happened. About two weeks ago, the Iranian National Security Advisor Mr. Laracani said that Iran would be taking up this proposal; if there have been meetings subsequently I don’t know about it.  Again, I’ve been traveling, so I wouldn’t necessarily be aware.  So those are I think the two main things that I know of  that are out there.

Question: And finally could you compare the social life concepts Istanbul and Ankara?

Ambassador: Istanbul, is a very big and a very exciting city.  It is a beautiful place. There clearly is a lot that’s happening here whether it’s the social life, or in the economy, or whole lot of other areas. This is a big and very exciting city and I am delighted to be here. I like Ankara.  Ankara is a pleasant place to be.  The traffic is a lot more manageable.  The cultural life is more active than I was lead to believe it would be, and I look forward to getting to learning a little bit more about that.  I don’t want to contrast the two cities particularly.  I’m happy to be in Ankara and I’m especially happy today and tomorrow to be in Istanbul.

Question: Again a final question. Do you have some other information about immigration laws in the United States?  Because United States newspapers, news channels, largely are talking about this situation, and today I read in an article of Fareed Zakaria, from Newsweek; he wrote a very interesting article.  He compared the immigration policy in Germany, France and the United States.  And he exactly says that the better one is in the United States.  The German and French policies are totally wrong.

Ambassador: I have to look for his article. I haven’t read it. When I was in Washington and before that there was a big debate and there is a big debate about reform of our immigration legislation.  We have a worker shortage in our country.  Unemployment I think is about  4.5 percent, but there are quite significant shortages of workers in a wide number of specialized fields.  So, where are we going to get those workers? They come from somewhere else.  But at the same time there are lot of people in my country that are very, very concerned about an enormous number of illegal immigrants who live in the United States.  I think the number is around 10 million -- Hispanic in a way, they are not all Mexicans, some from Central America, some from South America, as well as from a variety of other countries. That’s a big number.  That might be 12 million.  It’s a very big number, and the problem of illegal immigration has kind of gotten out of hand in the views of many, many people in the United States.  And so, there are a lot of debates that are going on both about how to deal with this problem of the large numbers that live in the United States illegally; how best to regulate or deal with future inflows.  And third, how best to deal with this problem of labor shortages for certain critical skills that we need in our economy.  People are trying to balance that out.  This is a political year in the United States.  We have Congressional elections this fall, and that of course also colors how people will approach this.  It’s probably the biggest issue.  Certainly the week that I was in Washington it was the issue that was most on the minds of the members of Congress that I met with, and that others met with.

Question: The Green Card policy, is it falling apart?

Ambassador: I don’t know that it is falling apart. Clearly there is a huge problem of illegal immigrants that are living in the United States who are contributing in very helpful ways to our economic growth and development, but they don’t have legal status. And so how are we going to deal with this is really the heart of the matter.

Thank you.