Speeches

Ambassador Edelman Interview with “Hurriyet” Newspaper

March 29, 2005 Istanbul

Q: What is happening with Incirlik Airbase?

Ambassador: It’s not a big secret. We made a request to the Government of Turkey last year, I think in June, to use Incirlik as an air mobility hub for our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- for logistical support.

Q: Only logistical support?

Ambassador: Only logistical support. That’s the only pending request we have for Incirlik. There had been a discussion -- a kind of informal discussion -- about the disposition of some of our other aircraft in Europe -- F-16s that are in Germany. But that was never a formal request and when Undersecretary of Defense Feith was here at the end of January…

Q: Any formal request?

Ambassador: No, we never had any formal request -- not for F-16s. Undersecretary Feith, when he was here in January, both privately and in his press conference, made it clear that we are not considering that now. We are not looking at that at all as an option in the context of our global repositioning of forces. So the only request we have at Incirlik is a request for the use of the Turkish airbase as a logictics hub. We have some ongoing operations there with the permission of the Government of Turkey and…

Q: With permission?

Ambassador: Yes, I mean our operations there are governed by the Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement (DECA).

Q: But this morning in CNN-Turk, I think, I heard some news about that. They were saying that the U.S. wants to use the airbase without any authorization, without any…

Ambassador: No, I think it was a question of getting blanket diplomatic clearances so that every flight would not require a separate diplomatic clearance. The request for the air mobility hub, the logistics hub, is governed by the DECA. I believe that our colleagues at the Turkish General Staff (TGS) believe that the request falls within the terms of the DECA as well, and under the decree that was issued by the Council of Ministers.

Q: What is the purpose of the logistics hub?

Ambassador: It would basically be to move equipment and supplies back and forth.

Q: Referring again to the CNN-Turk report, they were saying that the Turkish side wants Incirlik Airbase to be used in only one direction -- from Iraq to the U.S.

Ambassador: I couldn’t comment on that, because we have had no communication from the Government of Turkey about any of this since our request, other than the fact that it is under consideration. So I don’t know what the report is referring to and I wouldn’t want to comment on it.

Q: What was the request then?

Ambassador: Well, it was first discussed informally when General Handy, who is the commander of our air mobility command, was visiting from the United States -- I think it was in May. Then we formalized it with a more formal request in June -- I’d have to go back and check but, I think it was June 2004. I know it was well before the Summit, because we were hoping that we would have an answer by the time of the Summit but did not. That’s where the matter stands as far as I know. It hasn’t actually been the subject of discussion between the two governments recently. It didn’t come up when Dr. Rice was here, or in other meetings that we have had.

Q: Mr. Ambassador, what really happened in Suleymaniye, the famous incident? How did you learn about it? What really happened there?

Ambassador: I learned about it sitting on the beach in Chincoteague, Virginia, because I was not ambassador yet when that happened. Bob Pearson was still ambassador, so I learned while I was vacationing on the beach getting ready to come here to assume my post. I learned that there had been a series of phone calls on the subject, including one between the Prime Minister and Vice President Cheney. So I am not the right person to comment on it, because I really wasn’t around at the time and I don’t know all the particulars of what happened.

I think we all know the main outlines of the story, but I don’t know anything beyond that. I wasn’t part of the investigations that took place afterwards. I can’t shed any light on that for you really. In any event, my own view is that all these things are in the past and we need, in the interest of a healthy relationship, to get beyond them and focus on the issues that are in front of the two countries today. We need to try to deal with those issues, rather than on the things that were problems or irritants in the relationship in the past.

Q: How are the relations now? Are they deteriorating?

Ambassador: No.

Q: Mehmet Ali Birand wrote an article today about this.

Ambassador: I read it.

Q: He said that it is not worse, it is the worst, or even something beyond the worst. He was very pessimistic.

Ambassador: I read his column this morning. I have a lot of respect for Mehmet Ali, but I couldn’t quite tell from the column what he was talking about because there was nothing very specific in it. There was no indication of who he had talked with, or what he had heard other than references to what happened on March 1. So I am not quite sure what he was talking about.

My sense is that it’s a relationship that -- there’s no point in pretending otherwise -- has been through some difficult times over the last couple of years -- since March 1, the military operation in Iraq, and the July 4 incident that you mentioned. We’ve had both ups and downs during that period. There is the tendency to focus only on the downs sometimes, but we have had periods of successful cooperation as well. We had the offer by the Government, approved by the Parliament, of peacekeepers for the stabilization mission in Iraq, which for a variety of reasons didn’t work out but was very much appreciated in Washington. We had the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington in January of last year, which was very successful. Out of his very good conversation with the President and out of the Prime Minister’s conversation in Davos with Kofi Annan came a very, very intense push for a Cyprus settlement, which didn’t succeed unfortunately. But with the agreement at Burgenstock and the referendum on April 24, which was passed in the North but failed in the South, we came as close as anybody has in 40 years to what we have all wanted for some time -- a bi-communal, bi-zonal settlement of the conflict in Cyprus.

There was the Prime Minister’s trip to Sea Island, Georgia for the G-8 Summit for the launch of the Broader Middle East Initiative, which I think was also very positive. The President had a very successful visit here, both to Ankara and Istanbul, for his bilateral visit and then the NATO Summit. So we have had lots of positive work that we have achieved together in the relationship.

Obviously, there have been a lot of issues having to do with Iraq that have been problems for people, a problem in public opinion here in Turkey, a problem for some of the elements of the government having to do with PKK, the future of Kirkuk, etc. But that is not surprising and it is to be expected. I think if you look at the government-to-government relationship, particularly since Dr. Rice’s very successful visit to Ankara back in early February, our relations are perfectly fine. I think there have been lots of opportunities for people to respond to things that have appeared in the press that might have made the relationship more difficult. I think people in the governments on both sides have avoided that. What I do think is a bit of a problem is that, in the long run, a strong U.S.–Turkish relationship requires public support on both sides. This is not to say that everyone has to love the United States all the time. There is certainly room for disagreement; there is certainly room for criticism. We have been through that before in the history of this relationship. We had periods of strained public support here in Turkey after the Johnson letter in the 1960s, because of Vietnam in the late 1960s and 1970s, because of the Cyprus intervention and then the embargo in the mid 1970s. So there have certainly been periods where people in Turkey have been unhappy with the United States. That is not new. What is important is that in the long run there has to be an understanding that the relationship is important for both countries -- in both publics. I do see that that has been a little bit frayed because of some things have happened on both sides.

Q: I’ve asked myself that question. Turkish journalists and columnists are from a generation that formed its views in the 60’s and 70’s – all of us. The nationalists, the religious, the leftists, all of them in the past had a common anti-American feeling. So they are now in the columns, in the media, and sometimes with feelings of nostalgia. I am not sure whether the Turkish people have a very strong anti- American feeling. During the Fallujah operation there was some reaction in the newspapers. But in the streets, there were very few demonstrations.

 

Ambassador: On the anti-Americanism, I agree with you. I have not seen very much evidence that anti-Americanism in Turkey manifests itself now in any kind of inter- personal animosity between Turks and Americans. On the contrary, most Americans who are here have very positive experiences with all the Turks that they deal with. It is hard not to be impressed by the hospitality for which Turks are well known. I think if you look at poll data, there are some disturbing things. I guess the question is, are these things transient or are they long lasting? For instance, according to a Pew Charitable Trust poll conducted a couple of years ago, over 50 % of Turks are worried that the United States might attack Turkey. You see other manifestations of this in poll data. Then you have the Metal Firtina phenomenon. I agree that people shouldn’t get too excited about this, in the sense that it is a novel -- it is not real. But the difficulty is that the authors of the novel are claiming that what they wrote is not fiction. They are saying that this could actually happen. So it is something that people need to be a little concerned about in terms of how do people in the modern world form their opinions of things such as Turkish relations with the United States, the importance of the U.S. It is an epistemological question. How do we know what we know? People in Turkey know what they know largely through the media -- especially, I would say, through television, but also through newspapers. There is also some relationship between newspapers and television, because in my experience -- I don’t know whether it is true here in Turkey but certainly in the United States -- newspapers to some degree set the parameters for what is on television. Television news broadcasts at night tend to reflect what is in the print press. I notice here in Turkey when I get up in the morning and I turn on the TV news, there are quite a few news shows that will begin by people going through the headlines of all the various newspapers. So public opinion is formed and mediated through elites, and particularly through the media elite.

That is where the point you make about how the pre-existing points of view columnists bring to the table has an impact. If what people learn is refracted through the lens of those who have either a nationalist, Islamist, or leftist view of the world -- and I noticed what you say as well -- then the discourse that people use with regard to the U.S. and U.S. policy is very, very similar. Sometimes you don’t know whether it is in the Islamist, the nationalist, or the leftist press, because the discourse they use is almost identical. It is anti-capitalist, anti-western, anti-American and, I am sorry to say, occasionally anti-Semitic. On the anti-Semitic question, I don’t see it on an interpersonal level so much. But I do think the sales of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and some of the really rather violent anti-Semitic rhetoric that one sees in the Islamist press reflects this. I know it is small, but it has a disproportionate impact and some of it seeps over into the mainstream press.

Q: (inaudible)….like in Tehran?

Ambassador: I wouldn’t want to make any invidious comparisons with other countries, but I understand what you are saying and I don’t think that on the interpersonal level I see this very much. But I do think that in the wake of the bombings of the synagogues in Istanbul a year ago in November by Al-Qaeda, and with the sales of Mein Kampf, the Jewish community is a little nervous about it. I can understand that nervousness.

 

Q: The Jewish community might be nervous, but also the reaction the public gave to the bombing in this… (inaudible).

Ambassador: I agree with that, and I think the Prime Minister, in particular, deserves a lot of credit for what he did in November 2003.

Q: He made a powerful comment about it.

Ambassador: And he went to meet with the Chief Rabbi . I think that was a very good thing.

Q: Regarding the views of the columnists of your generation, they were already around ten years ago. So I don’t think that columnists would have such a large effect if there were a different environment.

Ambassador: Of course. The environment has changed because of the war in Iraq. The large public opposition to it in Turkey has created an environment where it is very easy to voice these anti-American sentiments. People are unhappy because they perceive that the U.S. proceeded with the war despite very large public disapproval in Turkey. So I understand this is all a question of the environment, and Iraq is a big part of it. Iraq will also be a big part of the solution, because if things continue to develop in a positive way in Iraq I think that will change the perceptions over time. It will change the perceptions of what is going on, what its impact is, and what the relative costs and benefits are to Turkey. Obviously, if a stable, unified Iraq that’s on the path towards democracy evolves, that will clearly be a big benefit to Turkey. It will be in Turkey’s interest. After Dr. Rice’s visit (and she was here only a few days after the Iraqi election), I told the press that I thought that developments in Iraq would be a part of the healing of the U.S. –Turkish relationship. I am even more optimistic now six weeks or so later. It is clear that the election has made a major impact in Iraq. It has been a major turning point. Many of the Sunni Arab leaders in Iraq have concluded that boycotting the election was a mistake. They don’t want to compound the mistake by not being part of the constitution writing process. All of us would have rather seen the government emerge from the elections more quickly than it has. But I actually think it is a positive thing, because democracy is being born in Iraq before our eyes. Various parties are having to negotiate with one another, having to accommodate one another, and having to resolve very difficult and thorny issues about the role of religion in society, the proper scope of federalism, where the powers will be divided, how the resources of the country will be dispersed and distributed. That is what democracy is all about. So it is maybe not now happening as fast as we would like, probably a little messier than we would like. But that is democracy. That is a very good thing. Already there are plenty of signs that the insurgency has been deeply affected by this. They are not nearly as effective as they were. Militarily, the number of attacks is down. It is not to say that they have ended, and it is not to say particularly the Jihadist element isn’t doing everything it can to encourage a kind of sectarian ethnic violence. But so far they haven’t succeeded, and that is a very positive thing. So I think over time, as things develop in Iraq, that will help on the question of the U.S.-Turkish relationship as well.

Q: You are winning the war or… ?

Ambassador: I think Iraqis are winning the war. The Iraqis are winning their own country back. We have been training more and more Iraqi military and police forces. They continue to be the biggest target of the insurgency. It is not an accident that the insurgents are constantly blowing up recruiting stations and police stations. They are trying to go right at the issue of Iraqis providing for their own security. We had General Abizaid here in January, and one of the things he told our colleagues in Ankara is that he had been really quite surprised by the fact no matter how many people were killed -- either assassinated or blown up in car bombings – other Iraqis would step forward to take their place. They want to have their own country and control their own country. Since the elections, those feelings have become even stronger, because people now feel they want to defend what they voted for.

Q: The Peshmerges. Are they going to disband the Pesmerge forces?

Ambassador: That is something the Iraqis are discussing among themselves right now. The Iraqis are going to make the decision about how they structure their armed forces, what kind of police forces there are, and what kind of other armed forces there are in the country. It is not a decision for us to make. It is for Iraqis to sort out.

Q: I am also curious about the perception of Turkey in the U.S. Do you see any difference? I have a feeling that after 9/11 the views towards Islam include Turkey.

Ambassador: There are a couple of different issues there. One is there is a huge asymmetry between the Turkish perception of the Unites States, and the American perception of Turkey. The former is a constant issue here in Turkey; it is constantly in the press. What the American ambassador says is much more in the press than I would have expected before I got here. It’s something people are very concerned about. In the United States --- and this is not meant to be in any way a negative comment about Turkey --- Americans are separated from the rest of the world by two oceans. They are much less concerned about the rest of the world. Turkey doesn’t loom very large in the minds of most Americans, certainly not in the way that the United States does here in Turkey. I think by and large the image of Turkey in the United States has been relatively positive over the past years. Turkey has been regarded as a good ally. Certainly that is the case in those circles that are attentive to international affairs and foreign policy. You really have to distinguish between the attentive public in the United States and the broader public that doesn’t pay much attention to foreign affairs. In the broader public, yes, there was a period when the image of Turkey was more or less defined by the movie “Midnight Express.” But that was quite a long time ago, and I think in the 1990s it was a much more positive image.

Q: I see that image more in Europe…

Ambassador: It has been much more positive. Now there have been, of course, a couple of instances where people here have rightly pointed out that we have had a few television shows in the United States recently that have depicted Turks -- and by extension, Turkey -- in an unflattering light. I just read in the newspaper yesterday that NBC’s Jeff Zucker sent a letter of apology to Faruk Logoglu about that. I noticed ..

Q: There is an excellent book: The Image of Turks in the World. It was published last month -- I read it. The negative image of Turks is very deeply rooted, especially in Europe.

Ambassador: Some of it goes back to the 17th Century and earlier, but I don’t think that the siege of Vienna really looms large in the American psyche. I think in general the image has been positive. I think there was an initial disappointment after March 1. A lot of Americans had certainly wished and hoped that Turkey would be with us and would be an ally in the operation in Iraq, as it had been in Korea and throughout the Cold War. When that didn’t happen, I think there was some disappointment and, in some quarters, even anger. But I think it wasn’t very long lived. You can look, for instance, at the fact that very shortly after March 1 we had a vote on the floor both the House and the Senate to approve the supplemental legislation that included $1 billion for Turkey. As you know, it turned out to be money we didn’t have to spend, because it succeeded in its purpose to stabilize the economy after the war, particularly the currency. It turned out that it didn’t have to be used, because Turkey ‘s economic policies have been so successful. But the fact that the members of the Congress voted both in the House and the Senate immediately after March 1 to offer the money to Turkey suggests that there wasn’t a lot of long-lasting anger. What has happened more recently, though, is that because we operate increasingly in a 24/7 all-news, internet environment, some of the anti-American things that are written in the Turkish press here are now available in the United States almost instantly. There are a number of websites here in Turkey that produce English language news and that summarize the Turkish press.

 

Q: English language news as we do at “Hurriyet,” and “The Turkish Daily News.”

Ambassador: I can mention that since I am here. “Hurriyet” has an English language website. “The Daily News” also has one and, of course, has summaries of other media columns and coverage. There is another website, “Zaman,” that has an English language website. There is “The Turkish Press Scanner.”

Q: Somebody told me that some Jewish organizations are immediately translating all the articles…

Ambassador: There is an organization -- I don’t think it is a Jewish organization, though some Israelis are involved in it -- called the Middle East Media Research Institute. They have, for a very long time, been an important source in Washington of translations from the press in the Middle East. A few months ago they started doing translations from the Turkish press as well.

Q: This is very dangerous, you know. By choosing one article, and if you read that in the internet or newspaper, you have the feeling that this is the general view of Turkey.

Ambassador: I think to be fair to them, they have tried to cover a broad array of news. I think they are trying to be fair and balanced. I don’t know that they always succeed in being balanced. The result, however, is that a lot of things that are printed here in the Turkish press now are circulated in the United States and people read it. This does have an effect. This goes back to the question of maintaining public support in both countries for the relationship. Obviously, if there are really inflammatory things in the press here, when they are read in the United States they cause a reaction. I think it means that both governments are going to have an added burden in trying to manage the relationship. It requires attention to the public dimension that we haven’t always paid as much attention to in the past as we have to now because of the environment we live in.

Q: Your departure. What is the real reason?

Ambassador: The real reason is the stated reason. I know that for you and the press and for others in the media the notion that anything might be what it purports to be is anathema. There must be something behind it. No, there is nothing behind it. I have been talking with Dr. Rice and with others in Washington for some time about my own career in the Foreign Service and, because of a variety of personal factors, serving overseas was less and less likely an option for my family and me. We came to the conclusion that probably the Foreign Service part of our life and career was coming to an end. That was a decision that I took in consultation with Dr. Rice at the end of February or beginning of March. It had nothing to do with all this hubbub about what I never said about President Sezer’s visit to Syria. But the timing just worked out so that the announcement came out at the same time. I may continue on in government. I don’t actually know what I am going to do after I leave. But I may continue on in government -- that is a possibility.

Q.: In the international security area…

Ambassador: It would be in the international security area, but it would not be in the State Department or at the National Security Council. I just don’t know yet about that. If that happens, I will be fine. If not, I have a lot of expressions of interest in the private sector that I was not able to explore because of the ethics law we have in our government. I can’t really be negotiating with people in the private sector while I am a sitting Ambassador. I needed to take the step of…

Q: Someone told me you would be the next Wolfowitz in Washington.

Ambassador: I wouldn’t bet on that. I don’t think so. But it has nothing to do with U.S.- Turkish relations or our experience in Turkey, which has been, by and large, a good one. It is just a personal career decision.

Q: Mr. Ambassador, what was the worst day of your career in Ankara?

Ambassador: The worst day in my career in Ankara? I didn’t have that many bad days actually. Mostly I had good days. I mean, you know the number of visitors we had during the time I have been here. We have had the President; Secretary Rumsfeld was here for the summit in Istanbul.

Q: The performance of the President was excellent in Istanbul.

Ambassador: The summit was probably the high point, though there have been a lot of high points. The speech at Galatasaray was terrific. By the way, sometimes I wanted to give a talk or speech called “The Strange Career of the Broader Middle East Initiative.” Ever since this first came to the surface in January of 2004, there have been any number of articles -- not in Turkish press actually, but in the U.S. and Western press -- saying we are backing off, or we are not going to do this democracy thing. These articles continue no matter how many times the President says this is our policy. But there is a direct line between what he said at Galatasaray University and what he said in his inaugural address and the State of the Union address, and it remains the policy of the United States. I think that, historically speaking, people will see the speech at Galatasaray as one of the major statements on this issue. So that was certainly a high point being here for that. It was a little hot, but other than that it was a great moment. I don’t know the worst day. I just don’t think that way. I mean, every day is a challenge.

Q: Regarding the way that the Turkish government manages its relationship with the U.S.: how important is the Iraq issue? I should also ask, how does Turkey’s getting closer to the EU affect its relationship with the U.S.?

 

Ambassador: I very strongly believe that the relationship between Turkey and the United States and Turkey and Europe are not some kind of zero sum game where the better one thing gets, the worse the other gets. I don’t see that.

Q.: Do you think the Government might have that perception?

Ambassador: You have to ask the Government what its perception is. My observation is that there might be some people who think that way. There may be some people who think that, having seen the divisions between some countries in Europe and the United States over the war in Iraq, Turkey might benefit by playing off one against the other. I don’t see it that way myself. If you look at US policy for more than forty years, the US has supported Turkey’s European vocation and its aspiration to be a member of Europe starting with 1963. That continued right up to December 17, 2004. I personally was on the phone both with people in the Turkish delegation and colleagues on the European side in Brussels and our ambassador to the Hague, who was working with the Dutch presidency, and with our colleagues in Washington. I was here in Istanbul that day, and I was late to a few events because I was on the phone so much. It remains our view that Turkey’s place is in Europe. One of our major strategic interests in Turkey is Turkey’s success, which can be achieved by Turkey’s completely rooting itself in the economic and social institutions of Europe, just as it has been in the security institutions of Europe. We want Turkey to prosper and to do well in that whole enterprise. Since the president was inaugurated for his second term, there has been a serious attempt on both sides of the Atlantic to get over the differences and move back into a situation where we are working together for common purposes in a lot of different parts of the world. I think it would be a huge mistake for people in Turkey to see this as somehow getting a benefit from leaning on one side or the other. These goals are complementary rather than antagonistic.

Q: I received a letter for an interview from an American magazine, putting this at the top of the agenda. For Turkey, we are of course very well aware that as you just said it’s not a zero sum game But also from the American side, maybe they do not realize the importance of these relationships for Turkey.

Ambassador: I haven’t really observed that so far. I haven’t seen it play itself out. Look at the Cyprus issue, for instance. The US worked closely with our EU colleagues on that issue. Our UK colleagues are in a special situation there, because they are not only a leading member of the EU, but also they are a treaty guarantor power in Cyprus and so have a particular role. We worked in quite close contact and collaboration. Not only was there nothing to be gained by looking at it as a zero sum; frankly, had we not worked together it wouldn’t have been in Turkey’s interest.

 

Q: You took a very courageous step in Macedonia. Why didn’t you do the same thing in Northern Cyprus?

Ambassador: I think actually we have done a lot more on Cyprus than people realize. First of all, we have done a number of symbolic but not unimportant things like Mehmet Ali Talat’s meeting with Secretary Powell. We have had my colleague, Michael Klosson in Nicosia, go across the line into the North to meet with Prime Minister Talat in his office. So there have been plenty of symbolic gestures. But we have not just done symbolic things. We have, for instance, lengthened the validity of visas, and made it easier and more user-friendly for Turkish Cypriots to get visas to the United States. We have increased the possibilities dramatically for Turkish Cypriots to participate in educational exchange programs with the United States, particularly Fulbright. We have also announced publicly and have begun to move forward on the economic assistance -- we offered 30 million dollars in economic assistance that will go directly to Northern Cyprus. This has caused some consternation with the Government of the Republic of Cyprus. We have proceeded with that. We have had a team of consultants who have been on the island to look at how the assistance can best be used to improve the circumstances and lives of the Turkish Cypriot community. I sent my commercial counselor at the Embassy in Ankara to Northern Cyprus with a group of representatives of American companies here in Turkey to see what the possibilities are for increasing trade and economic activity. There is a working group that has been created out of that visit, some of whose members are here in Istanbul today for a meeting with the American Business Forum in Turkey. Tonight, I am going to be speaking at the dinner of the American Business Forum in Turkey, and hope to hear from them what this working group is doing and what progress it is making. So we have actually done quite a bit.

Sometimes we read in the Turkish press we have done nothing to help the Turkish Cypriots, and I basically reject that. I don’t think we have done nothing. We have done some things. We have not been able to move forward on the direct flights as quickly as we would like, because international air travel is governed by a multinational, multilateral agreement -- the International Civil Aviation Agreement administered by the ICAO in Montreal. It requires a number of legal steps and a lot of multinational collaboration. It is not something the United States can do unilaterally. I notice that everybody wants us to be multilateral unless it affects them personally, in which case they would like us suddenly to be very unilateral and disregard our other international obligations. So we can’t do that. We have to operate within international law. My colleagues in Washington, and certainly Ambassador Klosson, are working very hard to try to make it happen. It just takes a longer time. The truth is that, no matter what we do, the United States is doing what we are doing because we think it is the right thing to do. We said we would do this before the referendum on April 24, so we try to do what we say we are going to do. But the reality, which I think everybody would understand, is that no matter what the United States does, the future of the island of Cyprus and certainly the future of the Turkish Cypriot community in Cyprus is in Europe, with the EU. What really matters much more than what we do is what the European Union does. I think a lot of us are a little impatient with the lack of progress on that front, in addressing both the aid and trade regulations in the EU Commission. We are not members of the EU, so all we can do is work with our colleagues and friends in the EU to try, like our British colleagues, to work very hard to move that agenda forward.

Q: The referendum left the Turkish side with a bad feeling. The Greek Cypriots and the European side didn’t respond in a positive way.

 

Ambassador: We did everything we could. I understand exactly what you are saying. The only solution is to keep working and try to get our EU colleagues to move ahead on the aid and trade regulation and ease the situation of the Turkish Cypriots. It is important to try to maintain the momentum in the hope that at some point we can once again pursue a bi-communal, bi-zonal agreement that everyone accepts as the best possibility for a just and lasting solution to the conflict in Cyprus.

Q: You are going back end of June?

Ambassador: I have almost three months, but I have a lot of work left before I leave. One of the things we have been trying to do, for instance, is to increase the size of our Fulbright program, which has already been one of the more successful programs around the world. But it is going to have a fairly sizeable increase in resources from the US side and, I believe, from the Turkish side as well. I have talked with Minister Celik about this. He is very supportive, and he just had a very good trip to the United States. I think he and I agreed that the more Americans we get to come here to learn about Turkey, and the more Turks go and study in the United States and have a experience in the United States that is not mediated by television or movies, the better it is for both sides.

Q: Plus we would have a wonderfully educated resource in Turkey.

Ambassador: As long as they come back. As Turkey moves closer to the European Union, there will be a more competitive environment for students in higher education. If you are a Turkish student, you think, “do I want to go Oxford or Cambridge for free” -- because once Turkey is in the EU, tuition is basically free -- “or do I want to pay 45,000 dollars a year to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts?”

Q: But you can’t necessarily be admitted….

Ambassador: My comment is based on my experience in Finland. Once you are in the EU, it is basically free. There are costs because you have to travel and live; the cost may not be zero, but it will be low. We are going to be in a more competitive environment. That is good for us. It will put us on our toes a little bit more. I hope it will make us more aggressive in trying to get the best Turkish students to the US. In Finland, when I was ambassador there, they had just moved into the EU, and we traditionally had a very strong relationship in terms of students, but…

Q: What went wrong, Mr. Ambassador, between Turkey and the U.S.? What is the real reason?

Ambassador: We have talked about it already. I think a lot of it had to do with Iraq, with March 1, with people’s expectations on both sides. There are some unresolved issues.

Q: (inaudible)

Ambassador: Not much. The usual anti-war critics were critical, and in the United States as well. I say all the time that anti-Americanism starts at home. A lot of things appear on American websites from American sources that then get recycled in the Turkish press. The problem is that in the US these are regarded as extremely marginal figures who are not credible. But they surface here as sources, and are used by people in the media. Anyway there you have it -- we have to deal with it.