Ambassador's Remarks and Public events
Ambassador James Jeffrey’s Interview with Utku Cakirozer, Aksam
Ambassador’s Residence, Ankara
August 6, 2009
Utku Cakirozer – I’d like to arrange for you to talk with our Executive Editor Ismail Kucukkaya. He sent his regards and he told me that he invites you with all the executive managers there to the Aksam facility there in Istanbul. We would be very honored all together to host you there.
Ambassador Jeffrey – I’ll be making the rounds of all the media in Istanbul this fall.
Utku Cakirozer – We would be honored to host you there. Mr. Ambassador I would start with actually…
Ambassador Jeffrey – This is an on the record interview right?
Utku Cakirozer – It’s on the record interview. The major issue would be Madam Secretary Clinton’s remarks on the 15th of July, where she mentioned Turkey as being one of those partners tackling the global agenda. So, I would like to ask you what does this mean practically and how will Turkish-U.S. relations be influenced by these remarks?
Ambassador Jeffrey – First of all, it’s a compliment to the President’s speech here and the President’s speech in Cairo and it’s also a compliment to many of the actions that President Obama and Secretary Clinton have taken since they have come into office. We are consulting as much as we can with key allies and as she said this list of 7 countries which is so important for first of all the in various fields for example for economic development and responding to the global financial and economic crisis. We have the set of summits of which Turkey is a member and we have that forum, also we all participate in IMF and World Bank discussions. In terms of Iran, Turkey as a U.N. Security Council member state is fully in involved in these discussions that we are having. We will have more extensive discussions in the fall on the way forward with Iran, and in terms of North Korea it’s the same thing. This is primarily a U.N. Security Council responsibility and Turkey leads the subcommittee that deals with North Korea, so our involvement is very extensive. Another example is our contact with Turkey, when Turkey chaired the monthly rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council in June, when the renewal of the U.N. force in Georgia was brought to a vote. And Turkey was very very successful bringing it to a vote and in the end the Russians vetoed it, but the important thing was that we were able to get a vote and we were able to get a clearer position of the International community to both Russia and the others. We’ve worked very closely with Turkey on the Nabucco East-West Energy Pipeline. And we are working very closely with Turkey in three other areas. On the Caucusus, we’ve had extensive talks both on supporting the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and in the Minsk group, Matt Bryza has been our representative in the Minsk group four or five times. Since I’ve been here we’ve also had very extensive conversations with Turkey including visits here by Dick Holbrooke on Pakistan, Afghanistan and there will be a probably a meeting next month here and there will be further contacts in the United Nations. Turkey is a central player in this field, with its expertise and knowledge and its contributions. From the highest political level you have a trilateral summit program with Afghanistan and Pakistan; it’s very helpful, but you also have major programs both military and non-military on the ground in Afghanistan. And you are also very helpful with Pakistan. Finally Iraq in the Middle East, here again we have had very close contacts. General Petraeus for example was just here. Senator Mitchell has been here. Senator Mitchell is in frequent contact with Turkish officials and we are working closely recently Foreign Minister Davutoglu, who, for example was in Lebanon, working on the situation there. There is a very extensive back and forth sharing of information and views. I can’t say we see eye-to-eye one hundred percent of the time, an example being on how we view Hamas, but we consult all of the time and all in all it’s a very productive relationship.
Utku Cakirozer – But, what does this include? Will there be sort of a different mechanism with those countries that Secretary Clinton mentioned?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I don’t think there will be a special mechanism. First of all there are many multilateral mechanisms. I’ve mentioned some of them are the UN Security Council, obviously NATO, OSCE and of course various regional organizations of which Turkey is a member, and various fairly informal ones such as the Friends of Iraq that Turkey set up are the trilateral summit process that Turkey had for Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition there are bilateral arrangements. We are working to carry out what the President asked us to do, particularly in the economic and trade area, but more generally across the border in our relationship in terms of there are different set of meetings and different kinds of organization. Some of this you can put together in terms of joint commissions and such but by and large most of it flows from the critical importance of the two countries and in the relationship between them. That is, in the past month we’ve had the Head of Policy Planning, he’s a close advisor to Secretary Clinton. We’ve had Ambassador Benjamin who is a new Head of Counter Terrorism for the Department of State. And we’ve had senior official on Political Military Affairs as I’ve said we’ve had both the Central Command Commander David Petraeus and the NATO Commander Isaac, Adm. Jim Stavridis on his first visit to a NATO country, came here to Turkey. And of course General Petraeus does not have Turkey in his area of operation, none the less he felt it necessary to come here as well. So, it’s this level of structure and more interpersonal relationships and contacts that make our relationship important. It’s who takes whose telephone calls, really.
Utku Cakirozer – I’ve also seen the speech referred to a couple of times in Foreign Min. Davutoglu’s remarks. He gives big importance for this Madam Secretary’s remarks there. I think in two or three of her interviews he mentioned that this is very important in our relation with the U.S. what Madam Secretary says. Did they have a sort of a talk regarding this?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I don’t know if they talked about this specifically, but she had extensive talks when she was here. On how America sees the future that were along the lines of what she laid out in her discussion of America’s role in the world, America’s need to take dialogue and move into partnerships to tackle specific problems. Part of the reason is many of the problems today are no longer security - they’re health, education, science, technology and very importantly they are environmental. And so therefore we can’t do, we all of us cannot achieve results if we do not have the support of all of the major economic players in the world, regarding scientific innovation, trade and pollution.
Utku Cakirozer – You mentioned Iraq. What’s your expectation for this country after the withdrawal of the U.S. troops?
Ambassador Jeffrey – First of all, ‘expectation’ has a formal ring to it. It implies that we have a master plan. Our master plan is to let Iraq decide what kind of future they are going to have. They will be having elections coming up in a few months. This will be the third major national elections they will have had since the end of 2004 and we think that that will be another major step forward. It is our hope and our belief to some degree our expectation that the democratic roots have sunk deep into Iraq and that the country will attempt to resolve its internal problems and issues like any other county through democratic processes, rather like Turkey instead of through dictatorship and violence which was and has been unfortunately the experience of the past.
Utku Cakirozer – But there are some comments especially in Turkey that relations with Turkey and Iraq, especially with the northern Iraq might go in a negative direction.
Ambassador Jeffrey – It’s a hard question to respond to because there are a thousand issues out there. All of them might go in a negative direction. Some of them do go in a negative direction. The war in Georgia is a good example a year ago. The war in Gaza 8 months ago is a good example. The war in Lebanon is a good example. These are all examples of prophecies that we hoped would go well, but suddenly went badly. On the other hand they are all examples that when things go badly the International Community is pretty good at mobilizing and containing the damage. We are much better now than we were I would say 20-30 years ago. The effort to contain the damage of the Iranian revolution was really never successful. The world was not able to do anything about the Iran-Iraq War for 8 years. The efforts to liberate first of all keep Saddam from invading Kuwait obviously failed and the effort to liberate it required the deployment of a million soldiers and sailors and airmen from many many countries, including many in Turkey, who were basically putting pressure from the north as well as NATO deployments here. I mean everybody in the world was involved, so these kinds of problems required major international involvement. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has repercussions today, whereas some of the problems we’ve seen today and the past I would say 4 or 5 years we’ve been able to resolve, fairly quickly by a fairly common position of the International Community and I think that the Obama Administration is going to build upon that, because there was a willingness for example in Georgia. For the Bush Administration to follow the lead of the International Community specifically the European Union and President Sarkozy, Sarkozy was able to broker a deal in a way that we may not have been able to given the competitive nature of American-Russian policies.
Utku Cakirozer – But you served both in Turkey and Iraq. So, do you foresee sort of a potential or clash between the two countries about Kirkuk?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I wouldn’t say a clash. I would say that these are internal, first of all these are internal Iraqi issues. Turkey has an interest in how they come out just like we do, just like Saudi Arabia does, just like frankly Iran and Syria do. But, we don’t see them as the source of a clash between Turkey and Iraq. We see that if they don’t come out well, then the possibility of larger clashes between the PKK and Turkey is possible. Because, what we have now is a joint effort on the part of the United States Iraqi Central Government, and the Kurds in the north and Turkey to contain, isolate and suppress using the military term, to PKK; that’s been quite successful. And if that cooperation were not to continue then this could have an effect on Turkey’s overall posture vis-a-vis the PKK. Therefore it’s very import to us that that cooperation continues between all four of us.
Utku Cakirozer – But you believe that when the U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq in terms of security do you think Turkey would be comfortable?
Ambassador Jeffrey – It’s always nice to have 130 thousand troops on your neighbor’s territory, but the neighbor does not necessarily find that comfortable, which is one reason why the Iraqis have asked us to withdraw by the end of 2011.
Utku Cakirozer – How about PKK? You mentioned your support, the Iraqi Government is also trying to do their best, but how do you think this issue can be solved?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Well, we strongly believe that the first and very important step is military security and that requires two things. One is, protecting the population which is something where all and all Turkey has been successful particularly in recent years and secondly putting the terrorists, the PKK and in this case under military pressure. Again this is something that we are doing with Turkey in northern Iraq. Turkey is doing this on its own operations in south eastern Turkey. That is very important. Now, what’s specifically that is we can’t tell you because it’s very much dependent upon the experiences of an individual country where your political system is. But, our own experiences in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq has been that you have to have what we call a hall of Government effort. You have to do real economic programs that really make a difference. You can’t just list things, but you have to invest in the region, you have to provide jobs, you have to provide a means of living to people, secondly, you have to provide democratic rights to the extent that it’s a cultural, a religious or ethnic divide, you have to provide individual rights to people to practice their religion, to practice their languages, this kind of thing. Basically many other things that the Turkish Government is doing, things like Kurdish broadcasting on TRT, so that sort of thing we think is very important. Because, the discussion with the Prime Minister in his capacity is the head of the AKP and the head of the DTP yesterday, Mr. Turk is another example of the kind of thing. I do not know what they talked about in any detail, but it shows respect for a man who after all got a majority of the votes of the population of South Eastern Turkey, his party, and that’s important signal.
Utku Cakirozer – This new initiative, they call “Acilimi,” I have seen remarks although I returned from United States very recently, I have seen remarks in the press that some people say that this is coming from Okyanus Otesi, this is coming from United States. Have you seen this sort of opinion?
Ambassador Jeffrey – None what so ever. This is clearly a Turkish plan. We have our own views as I said. We have over the years provided these views to Turkey, but this is not something that is made in the United States, this is something that is made in Turkey. It’s the Turkish Government that is in charge of this, I have no idea what the details are just like you. I’m waiting for the specifics to come out. But, in general we don’t know of a terrorist movement, an insurgency or uprising that has been successfully finished by military means alone. Certainly the vast majority began with military means and then they successfully finished by taking measures addressing the social, political, economic, almost psychological aspect. These are necessary. They will never win over the hard core. But, they may win over the millions of people who are sitting on the fence, or are sympathizing, or whodon’t know what to think.
Utku Cakirozer – Do you think that these sort of steps should include direct talks with the organization or sort of getting in touch with Ocalan or?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I think that this is something that Turks have to discuss, we went through similar analysis, similar questioning, similar review of options concerning the Sunni and Shiite insurgents in Iraq and frankly with many of the same issues, many of the same problems you have and with some people we talk, with other people we wouldn’t talk.
Utku Cakirozer – What should be the criteria?
Ambassador Jeffrey – First of all I couldn’t explain what the criteria is that we apply in real detail and I would never even if I could, I wouldn’t speak it out here because it would sound like I’m urging you to apply the same criteria. This is something that a political system has to decide because it’s an important internal political question.
Utku Cakirozer – Are you going to talk with also Mr. Turk, DTP leader Turk in next coming days?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Yes.
Utku Cakirozer – I know you wouldn’t share with me but would be your main sort of message to them?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Our message to Mr. Turk in the past and I presume our message to Mr. Turk in the future is the more the DTP can distance itself from the use of violence the more it will fit into the democratic mainstream of this country. And one thing while I’m trying very hard not to give my opinion on individual decisions, statements or activities, I think that the comment of some of your government leaders that the way forward and including Gen. Basbug and the way forward is more democracy is a very important point. But, democracy and the rule of the weapon are not compatible. There are separate ways of perusing political power and therefore individuals, groups, parties, movements have to choose. And we are each people to choose democracy.
Utku Cakirozer – You said that you gave this message in the past to Mr. Turk.
Ambassador Jeffrey – We’ve given our message to many people in the past.
Utku Cakirozer – Did they listen to you?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I think you would have to ask Mr. Turk.
Utku Cakirozer – What was your impression?
Ambassador Jeffrey – My impression is that Turkey is full of people who listen carefully to everybody.
Utku Cakirozer – Are you going to meet with MHP leader or MHP officials?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I meet with Mr. Bahceli and other MHP leaders fairly frequently. I’ve met him once with President Obama and once on my own and I hope to meet with him again soon.
Utku Cakirozer – Because, I think you are sort having a tour of the leaders I guess. You started with Mr. Baykal yesterday.
Ambassador Jeffrey – This is normal, this is what you do as a diplomat. It’s nothing special.
Utku Cakirozer – No, I mean will these meetings take place in a couple of days?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I don’t have a meeting schedule with Mr. Bahceli, but we are ready to see him any time.
Utku Cakirozer – What will be your message to him?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I think our message to Mr. Bahceli is the same message we have to everybody. Democracy is important, it’s the way forward and in terms of the PKK the United States is ready to continue to wage, ready to continue to provide the support that we are providing, which is very significant to the Turkish military forces. We believe in what they are doing. We also believe as I said that in all of government approach to the problems of the South East is also very important in the long run. How Turkey applies that is a question for political leaders to work out. They are chosen by the Turkish people exactly for that purpose. I’m not chosen by the Turkish people for any purpose.
Utku Cakirozer – He seems to be sort of using harsh criticisms against this Acilim, this initiative. And this sort of creates concerns on many people’s minds whether this Acilim can be successful without the support of MHP.
Ambassador Jeffrey – As a general rule we see vigorous robust debate about important political decisions in a country as a very healthy thing, it’s a very good sign of democracy.
Utku Cakirozer – How about your meeting with Mr. Baykal yesterday? Did you find him a bit skeptical about United States?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I think Mr. Baykal gave an interview to NTV yesterday. I think that Mr. Baykal presented his points very well there.
Utku Cakirozer – And are you sort of I will so listen to this interview but he was sort of saying that this meeting with Mr. Turk was the same as meeting with the terrorists.
Ambassador Jeffrey – As a long established rule our contacts with political leaders, with diplomats and such are confidential. We expect that with the other side and we hold that to our side.
Utku Cakirozer – Did you find him that he might be supportive in the long run?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Oh I can’t predict that kind of thing. I think that you know you should interview Mr. Bahceli and Mr. Baykal.
Utku Cakirozer – I would also like to ask your personal experiences. You worked in Adana in the past. Which years was it?
Ambassador Jeffrey – From 1983 to 1985.
Utku Cakirozer – I think it was a critical time in terms of this issue what we call either the Kurdish issue or South East problem. Could you tell me and my readers how things improved, what’s good now, what happened?
Ambassador Jeffrey – First of all. The area remains even today behind the rest of Turkey in terms of economic development. It’s a very obvious and noticeable difference. It is still many times more economically vibrant today than it was in the mid 1980’s. With the one exception of transit trade, which was very active along the main routes through Gaziantep, Urfa, which was active then because of the Iran-Iraq war, is active today because of your extensive trade with Iraq. And then the other issue is I would say three things. The first thing is the economic improvement. The second thing is willingness on the part of everyone to recognize that there is a problem with the Kurdish population of South East and Turkey regardless of how you define that problem and a willingness to talk about it and to see if the people can find ways its forward. That’s very very common. It was not common in 1984, after the PKK insurgency broke out even before. And then the third thing is I think there is a general optimism in an expectation that people are willing and that’s strong and now by far than in the 1980’s.
Utku Cakirozer – Have you had I mean experiences, check points and the roads during that time, while going from one point to another?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Of course. Many experiences.
Utku Cakirozer – And did you travel recently to the region?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I travelled to Diyarbakir, what I haven’t done is travel on the roads. You get a feeling the best way to get a feeling for how tense the situation is, how broad an insurgency or set of terrorist actions are is to go out on the roads. Watch the soldiers, watch how they deploy, watch how they respond to check points and you’ll see the mid 1980’s was extremely tense, extremely dangerous.
Utku Cakirozer – How did you find Diyarbakir during your trip?
Ambassador Jeffrey – My last trip, vibrant, very active and as I said people are more optimistic, much more modern then it was even in the year 2000, when I was last there.
Utku Cakirozer – Mr. Ambassador – If we can find a permanent solution to this problem and you say that many people are optimistic about it, how could it influence the regional issues like Turkey and Iraq, Turkey and Northern Iraq?
Ambassador Jeffrey – First of all Turkey is the most stable, the most democratic, the most militarily powerful, and the most economically advanced country, it is not just your GDP per capita, which is the highest in the region other then the few oil states, it’s a fact that you generate your GDP by producing world class products, increasingly products that require a lot of mental efforts, services, engineering products. And finally you are the most integrated into global institutions by far, so anything that makes Turkey’s internal situation better makes Turkey a more effective actor in the international community. As an example of my own country, I am convinced to this day that if it were not for domestic problems in the United States, including the shameful treatment of blacks and the reaction against that, in the 1960’s and the general-political turbulences in 1960’s, we would have found better solutions in Vietnam. That is we may not have gotten in the way we got in, we may have found a better military strategy sooner then we actually did, which we didn’t until the early 1970’s and having basically won the war we probably wouldn’t have simply abandoned the place in 1975. Those were all results of the internal weaknesses we had. The struggle for basic human rights and freedoms and voting rights by America’s African-American population, a situation much worse for them then I think the situation is for your minorities here, secondly the internal turmoil, the Watergate incident and all of this very much weakened us and that weakness was manifested in our international decisions. And it’s the same thing with any country so, therefore the more Turkey can resolve its internal problems the more it can play a role with its economic strength, its military power, its stability, its international orientation and that’s a very important role because look at the countries around you.
Utku Cakirozer – How would its relations with the European Union affect this?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Well obviously the European Union is very much interested in reforms, more civilian control of military issues, human rights and various other issues related to that. The more you resolve internal problems, first of all the more attention and energy you have for the European reforms, secondly the very necessary counter insurgency campaigns that you run, the sensitivity of the Turkish Republic to casualties that are caused by the PKK can have a effect on how quickly you can move forward to European reforms because the Europeans don’t live in a situation where there is 3500 heavily armed insurgents, terrorists across the border, at least theoretically ready to come across and wage yet another mass of campaign of violence.
Utku Cakirozer – And our relations with our Iraqi neighbors?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Well of course the better your relationship is with your own Kurdish citizens then the more stable your relationship is with the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq and with Iraq in general.
Utku Cakirozer – Do you see a risk of all Kurds coming together for an independent Kurdish state?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I think I see a very strong basis, be it in the Balkans, where I’ve done a lot of work, be it in the Middle East, that every single border however drawn and ever drawn should remain where it was drawn, when it was drawn. That’s why we are pushing so hard for a Palestinian homeland in state within the border of 1967, that’s why we pushed so hard to maintain the borders of the constituent statutes of Yugoslavia; the one exception which is a very unusual exception was Kosovo. And you know the history of that.
Utku Cakirozer – Ambassador my last question about this Kurdish issue would be.. how will it happen? While there is this PKK there still, having their activities and effects, how can the Turkish Government sort of take some more steps? What might be the magic solution?
Ambassador Jeffrey – That’s a very important and very good question. The government has to take a decision including what the public would support on the one hand and what the steps would be that are efficient on the other. I cannot answer either of those questions, but when we were at the height of the violence in Iraq in late 2006 and early 2007, Gen. Petraeus, when he was back in Iraq for the third time started essentially a program like your village guard program except we tried to recruit people who had been insurgents previously. We at the same time started a program of, and this is very controversial, letting people out of the prisons where we were holding them. And some of them haven’t gone back to being terrorists frankly. But, the question is and this very worrisome to us, some of them have been very effective terrorists. On the other hand today is Iraq much more peaceful then it was in 2007.
Utku Cakirozer – Yes.
Ambassador Jeffrey – Absolutely. Did letting some of those people out contribute to specific attacks and specific bombings? Absolutely. On the other hand shall we can say letting Ahmed Al Dubari out, or whatever his name might have been, led to a suicide bombing in this market. Or letting this other person out led to that. And therefore we could be criticized and not criticized and we agonize although does this make sense? On the other hand the whole set of actions we took together have contributed including standing up and strengthening the Iraqi military and that sort of thing and the Iraqis’ own political stability, their own maturity have contributed to a much better situation now, a dramatically better situation. You can’t connect the dots on where things went wrong. There are individual people who went back to being terrorists, but you can’t connect the dots of all the things we did right with the situation today. You just assume that the collection of things we did in some way that is mysterious like most major human operations succeeded. Nobody can take a look at what happened on the beaches of Normandy and at the sky over Normandy on June 6th when 100, 000 British, American and Canadian and a few French forces collided with roughly that same number of German forces. And by the next day we had secured the beaches. Nobody can track what happened. It was total confusion, it was total chaos. Wars or even political campaigns you know. Some campaigns are very clear, but if you go back and look at your own election results from the 29th of March, do you know what factors influenced what changes in the vote? It’s very difficult to do that in any large scale complicated human endeavor. You just operate on the assumption of past experience and your judgment and what you think you can do, what resources you have, what political flexibility you have and you go in a certain direction and that’s what we did in Iraq. And that’s what your government is doing now in the Kurdish issue.
Utku Cakirozer – Could you elaborate a little bit further what are the parallels, what might be the parallels with what you have experienced there in Iraq?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Oh no, because I’ve illuminated as much as I should because, the problem with drawing a parallel is then it sounds like it is a lesson. “Bir ders size vermek istemiyorum.” What I’m trying to say is any action that is taken may well have elements that may not work out right. What you are shooting for is to have a majority of the steps you take be effective. But nobody from the outside, no American, no Iraqi, no Russian can tell Turks what to do.
Utku Cakirozer – Mr Ambassador I would like to turn to Turkey in general. Is this your dream job? What else can you ask for if you have a chance to ask?
Ambassador Jeffrey – This is the only job in the U.S. Government I would have taken after being Deputy National Security Advisor. Because, first of all it is a job that my wife can share fully with me. She speaks Turkish and she can actually live here, there are other really crucial posts such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, where that is not the case. Secondly, I know the country very well. I don’t know those other countries very well and thirdly the range of issues we have here and the very vibrant Turkish society and your very vibrant political processes make this place intellectually challenging. Very, very interesting. And thus every day is something new. Every day is 20 new things. We have many different levels of relationship with you and it is just a wonderful job, sure.
Utku Cakirozer – I’m not talking about South East, but in general Turkey, how do you see since Ozal because you have been seeing Turkey since Ozal’s time. How did it improve? You witnessed it. Three or four times you have served here.
Ambassador Jeffrey – There were two developments and they are intertwined. The 1980 military intervention, which stopped Turkey from sliding down a path of chaos that is similar to what we saw in the Balkans a little bit later and what we’ve seen in the Middle East and then the wisdom of the military leadership to allow a return to democracy and in many cases a more vibrant democracy then you had in the past that was associated and then the good fortune you had in 1983 of not only having a fair and free election, but having elected Turgut Ozal, who is very important in integrating Turkey even more in to the West and integrating Turkey into the international economic and trade world. Ozal believed in this. He was an expert in it and he did a great deal. And he was supported by many other leaders, essentially all of them. Continuing in this tradition is Prime Minister Ecevit, President Demirel and other leaders and you’ve had up till today with the AK Party, which is very, very strongly oriented on integration into the West and economic and trade development in fact expanding it from the major companies into what they call the Anatolian tigers and so. This has been basically a process of almost 30 years.
Utku Cakirozer – Looking at your experience here, or you know Turks, you have met thousands of Turks and then I’m sure you are also looking at the Pew surveys to we get each and every year. Is there a reality or is there some mistake? Isn’t it disappointing these figures?
Ambassador Jeffrey – No, it’s not disappointing, we take them seriously, because in a democratic system attitudes have an impact on relations. I would say that Turks look at our long term relationship and they see disappointments as well as triumphs. That’s combined with a suspicion of major outside powers that is fully legitimate given Turkish and Ottoman history. There is an assumption that the United States will act like 15th Century Austro-Hungry or you know 19th Century England and will seize, you know at worst try to seize Turkish territory at best try to exploit Turkey or some great game with other great powers and that’s been your experience over many hundreds of years in fact you were a major player in it yourself. And we disagree with this, we don’t think that we play that way, but we certainly are going to understand when people think we do. And so we try to educate folks who have extraordinarily large training programs that we have the largest IMF program which is military training. We have the biggest Fulbright Program in Europe and one of the biggest in the world. Turkey itself sends I think 8 thousand students a year on its own money, not to speak of what they contribute to the Fulbright Program, which actually we put in 500 thousand more, the Turks are putting 500 thousand more in. That will push it up over 4 million and in addition some of our own money that we normally use, you know for gasoline to drive Victoria around we turning into bringing more young American college graduates and English teachers here. So we have many, many programs and we think we have an impact. I would say that the reputation for example of American technology, American medical expertise and some aspects of American culture are much more popular here then you would see from the Pew surveys. It all depends on in which context people are looking at America.
Utku Cakirozer – But this 14% favorability is, do you think it reflects reality?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I think the people are honest when they are answering.
Utku Cakirozer – What could the two sides do? What could the Turkish side do?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I think that it’s of interest because it was considerably higher 8-9 years ago. And so I think it was up 40-50 plus % and I think it can return to that level. I think that it is a wait and see attitude. There were a series of blows to the relationship from 2003 to 2007. And given the history of the relationship which has gone up and down fairly dramatically, it’s hard to recover from those blows quickly.
Utku Cakirozer –How did Mr. Obama’s election to Presidency influence?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Well I think if you look at the Pew polls you will see that President Obama is one of the most popular international leaders. He polls very well. He can’t pull America along with him but he does very very well, so I think that, I’m confident in the future that his ratings will remain quite high and that America’s ratings will rise assuming that we take actions that are Secretary Clinton indicated are coordinated with Turkey in support of our joint interest.
Utku Cakirozer – Ambassador the Russian President is here today while we are talking and they are sort of discussing sort of to push Turkey or to invite Turkey to South Stream 2 or at least using the Turkish territorial waters for this project. I know that in general the main aim of Turkey and the United States is to sort of secure the energy routes – how do you evaluate this?
Ambassador Jeffrey – There is a great need for gas here and in Western Europe. Russia is a major supplier of gas and has every right to try to sell the gas in the most advantageous way possible just like American oil companies have for many decades sold our oil internationally in the best way possible from their interests. Our concern is that as the Russian gas sector is a state sector and as Russia is a powerful regional actor that you can have a mixing of strategic interest in commercial interests thus we believe that the more diversity in sources of gas and the more diversity in ways to move gas and the more gas like oil becomes a commercial rather than a strategic commodity, then the happy we all are. There was a period of time where oil became briefly a strategic weapon. That was not a happy time for your economy or for my economy, it was even an unhappy time for the economies of the oil producing companies in countries, because oil production went and down dramatically. And we have resolved that and thus we are able to absorb even very high oil prices you remember little over a year ago in to the international system because it’s commercially based, everybody understands its commercial and nobody thinks that one country is trying to get undo political advantage on others. It’s very important that to the extent possible in Eurasia the gas market can be the same, thus we applaud Turkey’s very strong commitment to Nabucco. We believe that commitment will remain.
Utku Cakirozer – Do you think this South Stream 2, I mean if Russia sort of realizes this route it will contribute to the monopoly of Russia in the end?
Ambassador Jeffrey – I think that we first have to see exactly what is agreed to today and we have to see what is eventually done. I don’t want to speculate on something that we have no idea what will happen. What we do believe that is Nabucco is a reality. We believe that there are gas supplies that can contribute to it and we believe that it is a right decision for Turkey and for its partners to move forward on Nabucco. And on the issues we have no problem with them.
Utku Cakirozer – Foreign Minister Davutoglu and Foreign Ministry, they are doing their best to sort of solve the problems or disputes in the Middle East. I mean the examples are, FM Davutoglu was in Lebanon, he also tried to sort of keep contact with the Palestinian sides to come together, and also Turkey’s talking with Syria I think there will be some sort of ministerial meeting which we call ‘Ortak Bakanlar Kurulu’ as you know. How does the U.S. Government see this? From which eye do you see these?
Ambassador Jeffrey – First of all, on many, many Middle Eastern issues we see eye to eye with Turkey. So that’s the first point. The second point is this does not extend to all issues. We have differences for example in the assessment of Hamas. But, I go back to the first point on most issues we see eye to eye. Thirdly, regardless of the issue including some that we don’t see 100 percent eye to eye Turkey’s efforts and enthusiasm and energy in trying to solve these many Middle Eastern problems be it in Iraq, be it in Syria, be it in Beirut, be it with the Palestinians, be it with Israel, compliments our own efforts and those of the rest of the International Community, you don’t have to be always doing exactly the same thing and you don’t even have to always have exactly the same views to make a contribution. Turkey is democratic, peaceful country integrated into the International Community. It’s exactly what we would like to see Syria be in, in the end Iran be in and certainly Iraq is we hope on the way to being that way. So, Turkey’s involvement and engagement is a good thing.
Utku Cakirozer – How about Iran?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Iran is a very very complicated and complex question. We hope that Iran will reach out and respond to President Obama’s offer to discuss the issues between us, but President Obama with the vast majority of the International Community behind him including the U.N. Security Council has one concern and that is, we have a number of concerns but the biggest concern is Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability. And if Iran is not willing to discuss alternatives to a future in which it is nuclear armed than I do not want to predict exactly what our next steps will be, but it’s clear that as President Obama said this offer to engage in dialogue cannot last forever.
Utku Cakirozer – How is Turkey’s position?
Ambassador Jeffrey – Turkey has said many times that it supports the U.N. Security Council.
Utku Cakirozer – And Turkey is a member.
Ambassador Jeffrey – And Turkey is a member of it, so therefore our assumption is, but you should ask the Turkish officials that while they address it publicly in different ways, few Turks want to see a nuclear armed Iran. Some Turks don’t want to see a nuclear armed Iran, but question whether Iran is actually trying to pursue that. Because the Iranians of course say they don’t. There is no doubt in our minds they are and we provide that information as frequently as we can. But I know a few Turks who think that it would be a good thing for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
Utku Cakirozer – Thank you very much.
Ambassador Jeffrey – Thank you.