Ambassador's remarks & public events

Remarks By Ambassador Ross Wilson Following His Meeting With Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan At The Prime Ministry

Ankara, December 15, 2005

AMBASSADOR WILSON:  Good evening.  I have just completed my first official meeting with Prime Minister Erdogan.  As many of you know, of course, I had the opportunity to meet with him as well on Tuesday with the Director of Central Intelligence, Porter Goss.  We had a very good conversation today that dealt with most of the important issues in US-Turkish relations.  I made clear to Prime Minister Erdogan the interest in and importance given to Turkey and US-Turkish relations at the highest levels in the United States Government.  I think it is fair to say that Prime Minister Erdogan expressed essentially the same sentiments back to me on the importance that he attaches to the strategic partnership between the United States and Turkey.  I don’t want to get into the specifics of what we discussed, but we did, of course, talk about Iraq.  We talked about PKK terrorism.  We spoke about economic issues.  We spoke about developments within Turkey itself.  At the conclusion of the meeting, I indicated how much I look forward to working with Prime Minister Erdogan and with his government on the many issues where the United States and Turkey have common interests, and where we want to try to accomplish things to benefit the peoples of both our countries.  I will be happy to take a couple of questions. 

QUESTION:  Turkey has had some requests for a long time concerning PKK terrorism.  At this meeting, did you talk about concrete steps?  When will the US take such steps?

AMBASSADOR WILSON:  In this meeting, we discussed the general problem of PKK terrorism -- how our countries regard this problem, and the kinds of strategies that need to be undertaken to deal with this problem comprehensively.  We referred to some of the discussions we had earlier in the week, both with Prime Minister Erdogan and with others, about a variety of ongoing efforts that the United States, and the United States and Turkey together, are engaged in to deal with PKK terrorism. 

QUESTION:  In some Turkish newspapers today, there was a report that some American diplomats visited AKP headquarters and talked about the alcohol ban.  Was there such a visit?

AMBASSADOR WILSON:  I understand form my colleagues that some officers from my embassy had some discussions -- either yesterday or the day before -- with AKP officials on a range of issues related to Turkey’s internal development, and foreign policy issues as well.  These are the normal kinds of conversations diplomats carry out throughout the world with political figures, with academics, with journalists I might add, to find out what is going on in a given country, and what people think about that.

Thank you very much.