AMBASSADOR'S REMARKS AND PUBLIC EVENTS

Ambassador Ross Wilson Interview with Enis Berberoğlu, Hürrıyet, Ankara Bureau Chief

Ankara, June 16, 2006

QUESTION: As you may know there’s economic turbulence abroad and we are heavily affected by this. For the Turkish market players the US attitude is very important. Does the US Administration still have confidence in the Turkish economy?

AMBASSADOR WILSON: For me the starting point of conversation about this subject is the global economic turbulence that has taken place especially in emerging markets. And that really began a couple of months ago. It precedes some of the market problems or turbulence that has appeared here and is a major part of the origins of the market changes that have been taking place in Turkey. And I think what has taken place in the course of the last week or ten days is a further reflection of some of those global trends. If you look at stock markets in the United States, leaving aside yesterday when it came back up because [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben] Bernacke took some decisive steps, if you look at the markets in European countries, in Russia, in other developing markets, Brazil, you see a lot of the same things.

Our Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs was in Istanbul recently and he was asked about this. He expressed a high degree of confidence that Turkey’s economic fundamentals remain sound and that Turkey’s economic managers, whether it is on the government side or in the Central Bank, have a clear understanding of what the true state of affairs is, and what steps need to be taken. And in fact a lot of us were encouraged by the very strong action the Central Bank here took a week or ten days ago on interest rates – a strong, signal of commitment to fighting inflation and maintaining strong macroeconomic policies that existed here for the last several years. I would also draw attention to the hard work that the government -- the Central Bank -- did here with the most recent mission of the International Monetary Fund that reached an agreement around the 20th or 25th of May on continuing the program here, on what will be the right kinds of steps that the government needs to take in order to reassure markets, in order to get through this global pattern of turbulence. We are seeing now government steps dealing with that.

QUESTION: My second question is on Iraq. There is a new government and a new era of democracy. How do you evaluate the new Iraqi regime, will overcome security problems which also effect Turkey?

AMBASSADOR WISLON: First, I’ll quibble on one point. When we talked about the Saddam Hussein regime, we use that word "regime" to reflect a government that had no democratic basis and no real public legitimacy. What we have now is not a regime. It’s a democratically elected government that reflects a struggle of a lot of political forces, but reflects the will of the people, bravely expressed as people went out to vote despite the risks that were there. I think that’s an important distinction.

Iraq has taken some big steps forward in the last couple of weeks. Getting the government finished, then getting it really finished with the identification and approval of the Minister of Defense, Minister of Interior, Minister of National Security. Those are big, big steps. Iraq also took a big step forward with the killing of Zarqawi, a blood-thirsty murderer that was widely condemned, including here. President Bush went to Iraq to show in the most graphic public way possible we think Iraq has turned a new page and we want to support the work of the democratically elected government to finish the job.

Clearly security is one of the biggest challenges that they have. And at least from the initial public statements that the Prime Minister has made, that the Defense Minister and the Interior Minister – I saw something today I think in the New York Times reflecting the Interior Minister's comments – they understand the problem. They are committed to taking decisive action. They can build off of work that has gone on for the last year and a half, that has taken a long time, to rebuild the Iraqi security forces, to rebuild the Iraqi army.  There’s still some work to do in disarming the militias and integrating militia fighters into the regular army and security services -- and in a way that doesn’t duplicate ethnic or sectarian lines. They understand that problem. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki has talked very directly about this militia issue. That’s encouraging. Time will tell how they will do. The defeat of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia was a big step.

On the issue of greatest importance here, that is the PKK, what Secretary Rice talked about when she was here in April, was redoubling our efforts and reviving this Turkey-Iraq-United States, trilateral mechanism to talk about and work on this problem. What she said is as soon as there is a new government, now the new ministers have just been approved, so we now have an opportunity I think to get that mechanism going, and add to the work that we have already been doing on the PKK in Turkey, on the PKK in Europe and add a component that is the PKK in northern Iraq. It has to be done in cooperation, in collaboration with the Iraqi authorities. As you noted, we now have a democratically elected government. It is committed to good relationships with its neighbors and it is committed to dealing with the security problems, of which there are many – the PKK is one.

QUESTION:  My last question is on Iran. Are you satisfied with and do you welcome the Turkish initiative led by Minister Abdullah Gul, on the Iran issue? As far as I know Ms. Rice has phoned him but have there been other contacts?

AMBASSADOR WILSON: Turkey has played a very helpful role over the last several months, speaking out very directly, publicly, and in conveying the right messages privately to Iran on the importance of Iran not getting nuclear weapons and the need for Iran to deal with the IAEA, to be fully transparent, to come back to the negotiations. We have been in touch at a variety of levels with Turkey over the last several months. Our Ambassador to the IAEA was here, we’ve had other senior level visitors here. This was a prominent theme when Secretary Rice visited in April. She and Foreign Minister Gul spoke several times since then. Other visitors and I have spoken with a variety of officials here. We have very, very good contacts on this and we very much appreciate the role Turkey has played.

Thank you.