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Rasmussen expected to attend fast-breaking dinner in İstanbul
Coordination between NATO and Turkish officials is still under way for setting an exact date for Rasmussen's visit, diplomatic sources told Today's Zaman on Thursday, noting that the visit was likely to take place in late August.
Rasmussen's first stop in Turkey will be İstanbul, where he will be hosted at an iftar by Prime Minister Erdoğan. Then he will proceed to the capital, Ankara, where he is expected to have talks with both President Abdullah Gül and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, the same diplomatic sources added.
Ankara believes that his participation in an iftar during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan will offer a unique opportunity to Rasmussen, the former Danish prime minister, to deliver messages displaying his attention to religious sensitivities and his willingness to seek reconciliation with the Muslim world.
During a NATO summit held in Brussels in early April, Ankara refused to give the go-ahead for Rasmussen's bid to become secretary-general until it received last-minute guarantees that he would reach out to the Muslim world, which was infuriated by the publication of the Muhammad cartoons.
Ankara had said Rasmussen would be a bad choice to replace then-NATO Secretary-General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, whose term in office expired on July 31, at a time when NATO planned to expand its operations in Afghanistan. The row over Rasmussen threatened the image of unity at NATO's 60th anniversary summit and was resolved only after President Abdullah Gül received assurances from US President Barack Obama, including pledges that Turkish commanders would be present in the alliance's command and that one of Rasmussen's deputies would be a Turk.
Only a few days after the NATO summit, Rasmussen delivered a speech at a session during the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) meeting held in İstanbul. It was the first time he publicly addressed the cartoon controversy of 2006 after Turkey threatened to block his bid for NATO secretary-general due to the way he handled the crisis.
“I respect Islam as one of the world's major religions as well as its religious symbols,” Rasmussen said. “I was deeply distressed that the cartoons were seen by many Muslims as an attempt by Denmark to mark and insult or behave disrespectfully towards Islam or the Prophet Muhammad. Nothing could be further from my mind,” he added.
“During my tenure as secretary-general of NATO, I will pay close attention to the religious and cultural sensibilities of the different communities that populate our increasingly pluralistic and globalized world,” Rasmussen pledged. In early August, on his first working day in office in Brussels, Rasmussen announced that he will visit Greece and Turkey as soon as possible, in a push to thaw the conflict over Cyprus and improve NATO cooperation with the European Union.
“It is a priority for me to get rid of these obstacles [caused by the Cyprus conflict] ... It is an issue which will be discussed with Turkish and Greek leaders when I pay early introductory visits later this month,” Rasmussen said. “These two countries will be among the very first to which I pay introductory visits.”
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