Word: ankara
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Before his election Obama promised to visit a Muslim country within his first few months as president - and he has chosen one that had fraught relations with his predecessor in the White House. In 2003, Ankara broke with its traditional ally by refusing U.S. troops passage through Turkish territory to neighboring Iraq, an act of defiance from which ties never fully recovered. Public support for the U.S. in Turkey fell to historic lows as the war progressed. Washington was further aggravated by the Turkish government's pursuit of greater engagement with the Islamic world, including an energy deal with Iran...
...Both Washington and Ankara seem ready to start over. Both see Turkey playing an important role in regional issues, from Syrian-Israeli peace talks to oil and gas security in the Caucasus and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. "Under Bush, Ankara and Washington were divided on many fronts," says Sahin Alpay, politics professor at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul. "With Obama, they are moving closer together on all of these...
...foreign policy. Turkey currently maintains about 900 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of the NATO contingent there, and, as the only Muslim country involved, its presence is crucial to securing support on the ground. Obama is expected to push for an increase in Turkish forces and to ask for Ankara's help in facilitating a smooth withdrawal from Iraq...
...strategically placed between the Balkans, Black Sea and Middle East - is fast becoming a big regional player. It's no surprise that President Obama is fulfilling his pledge to visit a Muslim-majority country within 100 days of taking office by dropping in on Turkey. The new Administration sees Ankara as a key ally in dealing with many of its biggest noneconomic issues: how to achieve long-lasting stability in Iraq, how to convince Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions, and even how to save Afghanistan. And if the E.U. is serious about defusing some of the conflicts that...
...group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who have about 3,000 guerrillas based in the mountains of northern Iraq. Turkish officials seem to recognize this. A trilateral commission of Iraqi Kurd, Turkish and U.S. officials meets regularly to discuss a possible PKK amnesty. Other measures on the agenda in Ankara include restoring Kurdish place-names and cleaning up the jingoistic billboards that litter the southeast. What's really needed is a more democratic constitution. But the government has backtracked on that promise before, and is weakened after losing support in local elections last month. "To make this sense of progress...