Tuesday, February 17, 2009

phone call diplomacy

With Secretary Clinton in Asia currently, American press are completely uninterested in the phone calls President Obama is making with various European and Middle Eastern leaders.  
Given the past skirmishing between Turkey and the Kurdish terrorists hiding in Northern Iraq, I was hoping for some details regarding our current stance on the PKK.  The report at TurkishPress is the only report I've found to mention it:
Obama also expressed his willingness to work with Turkey on such issues as peace in the Middle East, ending PKK terrorism, and relations with Armenia.

Overall, all reports say the president had positive discussions on the relations between our two countries, and given the recent strained relations, that is good news; I hope that positive discussions lead to productive actions.
AFP reminds us:
In January, President Gul urged Obama to make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a priority, saying an active US engagement was needed to reach a settlement.
I find it interesting that Turkey places such a strong emphasis on U.S. brokering of Israeli/Palestininan peace, but I have no background to opine on that subject, so I'll just note it.

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