In Washington, Erdogan and Obama stress further cooperation between "model partners"

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on an official visit to Washington, yesterday met with US President Barack Obama at the White House. After an interdelegational meeting, which was also attended by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Erdogan and Obama had a face-to-face meeting. Many issues of common concern, including Iran's controversial nuclear program, Afghanistan, Iraq, rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia, the Middle East peace process, Cyprus, Turkey's European Union accession process, and joint counter-terrorism efforts, were discussed during the meetings, as well as ways to boost bilateral trade ties and economic cooperation. Speaking at a joint press conference afterwards, Obama praised Turkey's contributions to Afghanistan, stressing that these efforts have helped promote stability in the country. On the Iranian nuclear controversy, Obama said Ankara can play a positive role in easing the international dispute with Iran. Obama also hailed what he called Erdogan's "courageous steps" towards normalization with Armenia and encouraged him to continue these efforts. He said they reiterated the two countries' commitment to fight terrorism wherever it might occur, expressing his condolences for seven Turkish soldiers who were killed yesterday in a terrorist PKK attack. Obama reiterated that the US sees the terrorist PKK as a threat to not only Turkey but also Iraq. He also praised Ankara's democratic initiative to solve the so-called Kurdish or southeastern Anatolia issue through expanding the democratic rights and freedoms of Turkey's ethnic Kurdish citizens. Saying he was sure Turkish-US ties would grow stronger in the years to come, Obama said he would do his best towards this end. "And given Turkey's history as a secular democratic state that respects the rule of law, but is also a majority Muslim nation, it plays a critical role I think in helping to shape mutual understanding and stability and peace not only in its neighborhood but around the world," Obama said. For his part, Erdogan cited how Obama paid his first overseas visit to Turkey earlier this year, and called the Turkish-US friendship a model partnership. "We have started to take important steps to boost relations under this model partnership," Erdogan said. "Of course this has economic dimensions. It also has dimensions in science, the arts, technology and the military. We have assigned some of our officials to pursue this process. Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy Ali Babacan and State Minister for Foreign Trade Zafer Caglayan will pursue this process. I believe that this will carry bilateral relations to the future in a very different way." He added that Turkey will do all it can to achieve a diplomatic solution to the international dispute over Iran's nuclear program.