Ambassador's remarks
"United States and Turkey"
Remarks to the Turkish Contractors Association
by Ambassador Ross Wilson
Ankara, Turkey - September 19, 2006
President Erdal Bey, distinguished guests.
It is a pleasure to be with you tonight. I know that tonight’s event follows similar occasions with my predecessors and many very distinguished citizens of Turkey. So this is an honor for me, as well.
Relations between this association and our embassy are strong. We are excited that you have agreed to co-sponsor seminars in Ankara and Istanbul during the week of October 16 on contracting opportunities with the US Department of Defense. Turkish firms have been very successful in winning US business in Iraq and Afghanistan already. It benefits all our countries. I encourage you to participate.
Our good relations are also reflected in the outstanding work of Turkish contractors to build new American diplomatic posts: Aysel Insaat in Afghanistan, Georgia, and Moldova; the Summa Company in Turkmenistan; Ucgen Insaat in Kazakhstan; Zafer Insaat also in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Moldova; and of course Enka Insaat at our beautiful new consulate in Istanbul. As many of you know, we will in coming years be planning a new embassy here in Ankara, and that will be another big commercial opportunity, as well.
This proposed new embassy – which I have to confess is really a number of years off – is a good starting point for what I want to talk about, which is US-Turkish relations.
Many of you are construction experts. You know the methodical work that is required to build something – to secure funding, identify a site, get the architecture done, and carry out construction and finishing work. Our job as diplomats is not so different. Mutually-beneficial collaboration between our two countries does not just happen by accident, any more than new buildings magically spring out of the ground. In your work and mine, participants need to nurture personal and institutional relationships, address the issues, tackle problems, and keep on building.
I have now been here for just over nine months. In that time, a lot of our senior-level people have talked – more, I would say, than in the previous year or even two. This includes President Bush and Prime Minister Erdogan, our foreign, defense, energy, agriculture and trade ministers, national security advisors, military and intelligence chiefs, parliamentarians, and many others. Prime Minister Erdogan’s meeting in two weeks with President Bush will be another important step.
Secretary Rice and FM Gul endorsed and advanced this engagement in the so-called Shared Vision and Structured Dialogue paper that they announced in July. This document provoked a lot of speculation. Here is my interpretation of what we did. It is not some new treaty. It does not bind our countries together in any really new way. After all, we are already allies. Our governments pledged to work harder and more effectively together on a number of issues. We agreed to structure and regularize our consultations to help bring that about.
As businessmen, you will appreciate – perhaps all too well – that one of the hardest tasks in government is to get things done. (I am sure that bureaucratic inertia is not unique to the United States.) This Shared Vision paper is a tool that I can use, that Ambassador Sensoy in Washington can use, and that leaders of our countries can use – and are using – to get practical work done.
Nowhere is this more obvious than with regard to Turkey’s most immediate security concern – the PKK. I have said a number of times that I am proud that the United States has been able to help Turkey in its struggle against PKK terrorism. This includes our information sharing, which has helped Turkish security forces counter PKK terrorist threats; our collaboration going back to the late 1990s to get PKK leaders detained, tried and/or returned to Turkey; and efforts to shut down PKK criminal groups and sources of funding in Europe.
These things are good. They are not adequate.
The large increase in PKK violence this year is something that no government can or should be expected to tolerate. We decided that our Shared Vision required a new and more vigorous approach. A US special envoy for countering the PKK was named, and Gen. Joseph Ralston paid his first visit to Turkey and Iraq last week.
As he described it, Gen. Ralston’s task is to work with Turkey and Iraq to develop as quickly as possible a range of actions that will be effective against the PKK. Some steps the United States should take; some will be steps our two countries could take together; and some will need to be taken by or with the Iraqi authorities. Our goals are, first, more decisively and visibly to assist allied Turkey in defeating PKK terrorism and, second, to ensure that northern Iraq will not be a base from which the PKK can organize or carry out terror attacks on this country.
The Iraqi government yesterday issued a statement on the PKK. It said that it has decided to end the PKK’s presence in Iraq, close its offices there, and prevent its terrorist activities. One should not overplay this statement – clearly the Iraqi authorities have to deliver or be helped in delivering, but this is a small, constructive step ahead. There will be more.
Some have speculated about what a PKK “coordinator” means. This is not a word we have particularly used, but I’ll define the mission. My country’s leaders are of one mind that the PKK problem is very serious and that we must take more effective action in support of Turkey’s efforts to defeat it. Gen. Ralston’s job is to bring together the actions of our government necessary for that to happen.
Some have also speculated that our envoy for combating the PKK is really an envoy to the PKK. I have a two-word answer: not true. Gen. Ralston could not have been more categorical. He said he will not negotiate with terrorists.
Gen. Ralston was emphatic on the need for visible activities that demonstrate anew to the people of Turkey that the United States stands with them against the PKK terrorist onslaught. He and I are determined to move urgently. The struggle against terrorism is hard. Patient, painstaking, effective, efficient and urgent actions can and will change the situation for the better. This is our pledge to Turkey.
The PKK, of course, is not the only issue facing Turkey or US-Turkish relations. There is the broader matter of Iraq. We have appreciated the constructive contributions – political, economic and moral – that Turkey has made to help Iraq. The future in Iraq remains complicated and uncertain. Failure of unity and democracy there will be bad for the world and for Turkey. As Iraqis work their way forward, it will help to promote a strong and unified Iraq for the United States and Turkey to continue working together. Talks on the margins of the UN General Assembly in coming days will be helpful toward that end.
We have also been working in tandem to persuade Iran to abide by its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We pledged in our Shared Vision paper to work together on this because, I think, our governments agree that the spread of nuclear weapons would be dangerous. We have been consulting closely. Turkey is a very important part of diplomatic efforts to resolve the world’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear programs.
On the Middle East, I think we can acknowledge some differences of perception and approach. I know that many Turks, and not only Turks, recoiled at the violence they saw in Gaza and Lebanon on television this summer. American recoiled, too, at the violence and suffering on all sides, including in Israel as a result of indiscriminate Hezbollah rocket attacks on civilians there.
We all rejoiced when hostilities ended, and both our countries want UN Security Council Resolution 1701 to succeed. For that reason, we support your government’s decision to deploy forces in support of UNIFIL, along with this country’s generous humanitarian help to the Lebanese people. They will be a factor for peace and stability, as are Turkish peacekeepers in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo. I appreciate, too, the steps that Foreign Minister Gul took to reach out in support of Lebanon and to restore good neighborly relations with Israel. Prime Minister Erdogan’s meeting in Istanbul meet with leaders of the Turkish-Jewish community was a statement against anti-Semitism and for tolerance at an important time.
Our Strategic Vision paper also reaffirmed our joint interest in Turkey’s accession negotiations with the European Union. This has been US policy for decades.
Clearly, there are a number of challenges. Public opinion in several EU member states does not currently support Turkish membership. There remain many issues related to reform and especially the implementation of the many changes required as Turkey adopts the EU acquis and other policies. Among these are items we are especially interested in that relate to freedom of speech, freedom of religion and equality. Some here increasingly doubt whether the effort is worth it or whether it can succeed no matter what this country does. Turkey and its people obviously have to decide their own future and the pace of change. It’s good, if also difficult, that both Turkey and the EU countries approach this through the democratic process. We believe that stability, freedom and prosperity throughout Europe will be advanced through a successful accession process that brings in a secular, democratic and dynamic Turkey.
Cyprus is a particular problem in the EU context and generally. Work in three areas is important. One is to ensure that Cyprus issues are not an undue impediment at what is really the outset of accession process. There are some ideas that are out there, and we think they may have promise. A second is to revive a UN negotiating process that helps bring about a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation that will reunify Cyprus based on an agreement acceptable to majorities on both sides of the island. A third is to address practical, less-political community-to-community issues that affect people on both sides of the island. UN Undersecretary Gambari is on the right track in trying to get technical talks on these last issues going in a way that builds momentum to resume the broader UN negotiating process.
Since this is a business group, let me close with three blunt words about US-Turkish trade and investment: it’s too small.
American investors are here in adequate numbers, but are not as active as they should be. The Turkish authorities, you here and I still have work to do to educate them on opportunities that exist here and to ensure that concerns or problems get addressed effectively.
US exports are up in some areas – Boeing aircraft are a real success story – but suppliers in some sectors face impediments. We need to work on these, especially when they reflect policies that are inconsistent with Turkey’s WTO and other multilateral trade obligations.
Turkish exporters have had success in the US market, but also are not achieving their potential. The foreign trade ministry’s effort to segment the US market and target key areas is a good approach, and our embassy is working with the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) and the US Chamber of Commerce to better connect Turkey’s dynamic small and medium size businesses with the United States.
And Turkish investment is lagging. Experience shows that trade follows investment. Building a US presence is a natural next step for Turkey’s sophisticated business community to take, and I am determined to facilitate that in any way I can.
In conclusion, let me say that I believe in Turkey. I believe in the importance of Turkey for the United States, and of the United States for Turkey. We all know that there are plenty of problems and challenges – in Turkey, surrounding Turkey and in US-Turkish relations. To achieve the future people want, our leaders have to work at it, deal with the issues, help and advise one another, and produce results. That is the spirit in which we will approach Prime Minister Erdogan’s visit to Washington.
I am grateful to the support of many of you in this room. Thank you for what you do on behalf of Turkey and on behalf of a more prosperous and peaceful region and world.