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Erdoğan to visit Washington this month, after Tehran
The invitation is for Oct. 29, Erdoğan told reporters late on Thursday while aboard a plane returning from a one-day visit to Baghdad, during which Turkish and Iraqi officials signed 48 agreements on matters ranging from energy cooperation to water sharing and fighting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
“The invitation arrived today [Thursday]. I gave an order to review alternative dates,” Erdoğan said, adding that the final decision would be made upon a review of those alternative dates. “If we decide on Oct. 29, then we will head from Iran for US,” he added, referring to his upcoming visit to Tehran scheduled for later this month as well.
Last month, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Erdoğan announced that he would discuss Iran's controversial nuclear program with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran in October. At the time he also said he believed that limiting an ongoing nuclear debate to Iran's program was not fair. Erdoğan also said Turkey was planning to open a consulate in Arbil, the regional capital of the Iraqi Kurdish region, with which Turkey had problematic ties until recently, and a delegation of ministers and businesspeople will soon pay a visit to northern Iraq.
Government eyes strategic cooperation with Russia In the wake of successful joint cabinet meetings with neighboring Iraq and Syria, Turkey is now planning a similar gathering with Russia, top government officials have said. “We have proposed a similar step with Russia, but there is nothing being implemented at the moment,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday before departing for a visit to Iraq, during which he and nine ministers accompanying him held a joint cabinet meeting with the Iraqi government. Erdoğan and his Iraqi counterpart, Nouri al-Maliki, co-chaired the meeting under the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council. Erdoğan said an agreement to initiate a similar mechanism with Russia was signed when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Ankara in August, when Turkey and Russia signed about 20 agreements on cooperation in a number of areas, including, most notably, energy. “We will put into force a similar mechanism with Russia,” Erdoğan told reporters. Later in the day, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said in Baghdad that the joint cabinet meeting with Russia was likely to take place in the spring. İstanbul Today's Zaman |
The prime minister said these steps would pave the way for a new process in the fight against terrorism. Erdoğan's Iraq visit followed a decision made in the Turkish Parliament to extend a mandate by one year to launch cross-border operations into northern Iraq against the PKK. “[The launching of] cross-border operations is a right granted to us via international law. We have used this right up to date and we will use it from now on as well,” he said in response to a question on Thursday evening.
During a joint press conference with Erdoğan earlier on Thursday in Baghdad, while hailing the strengthened ties with Turkey, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made no mention of the PKK and said he hoped relations would be “far from interference in each others' affairs.”
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh had earlier said the two countries had agreed to “respect each other's sovereignty.” “We confirmed our steadfastness in ending the terrorism that threatens both countries,” Erdoğan said at the same press conference, referring to the PKK.
Further commenting on his Iraq visit, Erdoğan also said Turkey was ready to help the Iraqi authorities address the grievances of Iraqi widows, whose numbers amount to 1 million in a country of 30 million. "I asked al-Maliki if they had done any study on that. ... If this is the figure, then we are faced with a societal disaster. We can help Iraq with that, we can work together," he said.
Erdoğan, meanwhile, also valued the annual progress report on Turkey released by the European Union on Wednesday, calling it a “very-well thought and appropriately examined” report as well as the best report since Turkey started membership negotiations with the EU in 2005.
Asked whether he was planning to attend a UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen, Erdoğan said he would not, adding that Turkey would be represented at ministerial level at the gathering. The summit, scheduled for December, will discuss how to move forward on climate change when the Kyoto accords expire in 2012.
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