Number 24 | September 20, 2007
The following is an excerpted version of a speech delivered by R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, at the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington, DC on September 13, 2007. For a full version of the speech, visit www.state.gov.
[…] This is an important moment for the relationship between the United States and Turkey. Turkey has just elected a new government. Our countries now need to enter into a new era of our relationship and to commit to a revival of our very close friendship and alliance. …
The Turkish people have just concluded important, even historic elections. These elections demonstrated the strong health of Turkey's democracy, the most impressive in the Moslem world. The result was a decisive and Turkey can now expect a period of renewal and growth at home and responsibility and challenge in its foreign policy. The United States government looks forward to a very close relationship with President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Erdogan. …
Turkey, after all, has been one of our closest friends for over 50 years, dating back to the Truman Doctrine and the Korean War, and anchored by our Alliance in NATO. Throughout this long period, Turkey has always been among the United States' most dependable and important allies in an otherwise turbulent region. We look to Turkey, with its 160-year legacy of modernizing reform, as the most successful example in the world today of a secular democracy within a Muslim society that can inspire reformers in the greater Middle East and beyond. …
Turkey's importance to the United States is even more pronounced at a time when the Middle East in the 21st century has replaced Europe in the 20th century as the most critical region for America's core national security interests. Turkey is the only country in the region that can work effectively with all of the others in the Middle East. Turkey's influence is substantial and unique. In this very important sense, Turkey is an indispensable partner to the United States in the Middle East.
On perhaps the most dynamic international issue of 2007 -- energy -- we share a common interest with the Turks. Turkey is the gateway for exports of oil and natural gas from the Caspian region and Iraq to Europe. Building on our successful cooperation in the 1990's to develop the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the South Caucasus gas pipeline, we now seek to expand this critical energy infrastructure into a Southern Corridor to help our European allies -- Greece, Italy and into Western Europe -- create a free market for energy supplies in Europe. These efforts can also help Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan bolster their own independence by providing them access to European energy markets. …
In South Asia, Turkey is helping NATO to bolster regional security in Afghanistan, having twice commanded the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and now leading a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Wardak Province. Turkey has been an important arbiter between Afghanistan and Pakistan, providing a welcoming, neutral venue for Presidents Karzai and Musharraf to discuss issues of mutual significance. …
And, Turkey is playing a regional leadership role in the Middle East. Turkey's common borders with Iraq, Iran, and Syria provide an opportunity to advance peace and stability, fight proliferation of nuclear weapons, and defeat terrorists in a region that is now the epicenter of U.S. foreign policy. Turkey can help deepen our understanding of strategic trends in the Middle East, while reinforcing our efforts to advance political and economic freedom and fight terror to advance peace and prosperity. …
It is not only geography and common interests that make Turkey a key U.S. partner; it is our shared values of democracy, diversity, and tolerant faith that make us friends and allies. The United States and Turkey share a deep appreciation for the importance of separating civic and religious life. In Turkey, reform movements during the late Ottoman period aimed to balance the claims that religion makes on personal lives with the exigencies of a modern state. One of the most famous waves of reforms, the so-called "Tanzimat" movement of the mid-19th Century was an attempt to give all residents of the empire the same rights, whether they were Muslim, Christian or Jewish. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk rejuvenated Turkey's modernizing reforms, as he granted political rights to women, laid the foundation for Turkey's industrial rise, and established the Turkish Republic as a secular democracy. Turkey's commitment to secular democracy makes it a natural ally for the United States. …
As Turkey's democratic institutions strengthen and as its reforms proceed, Turkey grows in importance to the U.S. as a strategic partner. Realizing the full potential of this partnership poses several immediate challenges to both of our countries. In the Middle East, Turkey can play a regional leadership role that could help the U.S. achieve some of its most pressing foreign policy goals, but which will require careful coordination to prevent our two countries from operating at cross-purposes.
Turkey's willingness to help the international community address Iraq is all the more appreciated given the difficulties it is suffering as a result of attacks from PKK terrorists in Iraq. Let me assure you, the United States condemns the PKK as a vicious terrorist group. We mourn the loss of innocent Turkish lives in these attacks. We remain fully committed to working with the Governments of Turkey and Iraq to counter PKK terrorists, who are headquartered in northern Iraq. We are making progress in putting in place the mechanisms required to produce such concrete results against the PKK. We will also follow up our success in working with Turkey and our other European partners to interdict PKK terror financiers in Europe and bring them to justice. …
An important focus of Euroatlantic security cooperation is developing ways for the EU and NATO to work together in bringing their respective capacities to bear in strengthening stability and security in Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan and elsewhere. We appreciate the difficulties that such cooperation poses for Turkey given the still-evolving Turkey-EU relationship, the circumstances of Turkey's participation in activities within the European Security and Defense Policy, as well as the complications resulting from the lack of a Cyprus settlement. Yet it is vital for all of us, including Turkey, that NATO and the EU are indeed able to work together in crisis areas around the world. For this and many other reasons, we call on all relevant parties to reinvigorate UN-brokered efforts to reach a comprehensive Cyprus settlement that reunifies the island into a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation.
In conclusion, the United States and Turkey have enjoyed a relationship of Allied friendship for over half a century of enormous complexity, success, and promise. We have weathered a difficult period over the past four years. We now stand at the edge of a potentially new era in Turkish politics that offers a chance to restore a sense of strategic partnership in U.S.-Turkish relations.
