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For US and Turkey, different priorities |
On the surface, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Washington Monday is about PKK militants across Turkey’s border in northern Iraq, and whether the United States can pull Turkey back from launching an incursion against the militants.
But on another level, Erdoğan’s meeting at the White House with President Bush is about repairing relations with a crucial ally estranged by the war in Iraq. It will also test whether the US can keep a lid on the war-related flash points roiling the Middle East. “It’s high noon for the strategic relationship between the US and Turkey,” says John Hulsman, a distinguished scholar in residence at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. “The PKK is the impetus, but the real issue is addressing relations that for the Bush administration have been going awry since the Iraq war.” Another “real issue” is Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, and what the Turkish military especially fears that means for Turkey, others say.
[The Christian Science Monitor] |
