Us lauds Turkey's "constructive" role at recent NATO, OSCE summits

Amid numerous recent reports saying that Washington is unhappy with Ankara 's Iran policy, the Obama administration this week pointedly praised Ankara 's role at recent international summits. Philip Gordon, the US assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian affairs, on Tuesday described Turkey's role at last month's NATO summit in Lisbon as well as at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit in Kazakhstan last week as "constructive," while calling Turkey "a critical NATO partner" for his country. " Turkey played a very constructive role at the NATO summit and at the OSCE summit," Gordon told European journalists in a teleconference. "It's true that we disagreed about the vote (last summer) on Iran (sanctions). But we have always said that even strong friends and partners can have disagreements. And I think at Lisbon we showed ourselves to be good friends and partners in NATO." He added, " Turkey had strong views on a number of issues and represented itself on those views but came together with all the other allies to support the ambitious agenda that I've already described, including on missile defense, including on cooperation with Russia, and including on the new (NATO) strategic concept. And we all agreed. And Turkey took a very constructive position and I think showed anyone who was doubting that it wants to play a constructive role and is a critical NATO partner of the United States . Similarly in Astana ( Kazakhstan ) we worked together and reached a common agreement. I think the series of summits only confirmed what we have been saying all along that even when we may have differences about which we are frank we also have a lot in common and are going to continue to pursue our mutual interest."