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Ankara: Davutoglu Says October Will Be Month Of Peace

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  • Ankara: Davutoglu Says October Will Be Month Of Peace

    DAVUTOGLU SAYS OCTOBER WILL BE MONTH OF PEACE

    Today's Zaman
    01 October 2009, Thursday

    Davutoglu, who was in New York for the UN General Assembly last week,
    held a press briefing in Ankara yesterday upon his return from the
    United States. He said Turkey will help peace processes continue
    regarding the Middle East, the South Caucasus, Pakistan and Afghanistan
    in October.

    Davutoglu, who was in New York for the UN General Assembly last week,
    held a press briefing in Ankara yesterday upon his return from the
    United States. He said Turkey will help peace processes continue
    regarding the Middle East, the South Caucasus, Pakistan and Afghanistan
    in October.

    Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said he expects the
    month of October to be a "month of peace" while Turkey's efforts are
    under way in regards to peace in the Middle East, the Caucasus and
    the Balkans.

    Davutoglu, who was in New York for the UN General Assembly last week,
    said in a press briefing in Ankara yesterday upon his return from
    the United States that Turkey will do its best to prevent sanctions
    against Iran from coming to the table.

    "Sanctions would hurt the Iranian public as well as Iran's neighbors
    including Turkey. So we will speed up diplomatic efforts to prevent
    the option of sanctions," he said.

    Davutoglu and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected
    to go to Iran this month. The Iranian delegation will meet with
    representatives of the five permanent UN Security Council members
    and Germany in Geneva for talks on its nuclear program.

    The Foreign Minister also said that he talked with Iranian Foreign
    Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Monday and added that Iran assured the
    international community that it will work with the UN nuclear watchdog,
    the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

    Today's meeting in Geneva is expected to set the stage for progress in
    resolving the standoff over the Islamic Republic's refusal to freeze
    uranium enrichment and heed other UN Security Council demands.

    The US, Israel and the EU fea ram to develop nuclear weapons. But
    Tehran says the program serves purely civilian purposes and that it
    has the right to enrich uranium for use in nuclear power plants. The
    talks will be the first since a 2008 session in Geneva foundered over
    Iran's refusal to discuss enrichment.

    Davutoglu, who met Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in New York,
    also said that they have seen what sanctions brought to neighboring
    Iraq. He and Zebari discussed Prime Minister Erdogan's upcoming visit
    to Baghdad which is scheduled to take place this month.

    Upon a question from reporters regarding cooperation with Iraq in
    solving Turkey's terrorism problem with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers'
    Party (PKK), Davutoglu said there are a few areas of stress in fighting
    terrorism and one of them is cooperation with Iraq.

    "We have established very good relations with Iraq," he said and added
    that another important area of emphasis is cooperation with the United
    States. He said they had reviewed the cooperation agreement between
    Turkey and the US under the previous George W. Bush administration
    in New York with US President Barack Obama and US Foreign Minister
    Hillary Clinton. Since late 2007, the US has been supplying Turkey
    with real-time intelligence through which the Turkish military has
    been conducting air raids on PKK targets in northern Iraq.

    "We also attach importance to cooperation with the northern Iraqi
    administration. This is a trilateral mechanism. And we will have our
    next meeting in Arbil," he said.

    In addition, he mentioned efforts to cooperate with Syria and the
    countries of the European Union in that regard. "So all these efforts
    show that we are engaged in active attempts to eliminate terrorism,"
    he said.

    Davutoglu also evaluated the month of October to be a "month of peace"
    because of unexpected developments in the Caucasus. He said that there
    are parallel developments to the Turkey-Armenia normalization process
    as meetings between Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian
    President Serzh kh, Azerbaijani territory occupied by Armenia, and
    that this kind of development has not been seen in more than 10 years.

    In separate meetings held on Monday on the sidelines of the UN General
    Assembly, Clinton told the foreign ministers of the two countries
    that they should proceed apace and not get bogged down by political
    opposition to a deal, which they hope to seal by mid-October.

    Prime Minister Erdogan announced on Sunday that Turkey and
    Armenia would sign a deal in Zurich to establish diplomatic ties
    on Oct. 10. But the agreement must be approved by the countries'
    parliaments to take effect, and a major dispute remains over the
    World War I-era killings of Anatolian Armenians in the Ottoman
    Empire. Turkey insists that it was not genocide and that the death
    toll has been inflated.

    Turkish President Abdullah Gul attended a World Cup qualifier in
    Yerevan last year in what was hailed as a breakthrough, but Sarksyan
    has said he will only go to the game in Turkey if there's progress
    toward opening the border.

    According to Davutoglu, the new process in southeast Europe is proof
    of October being a "month of peace" as Turkey is going to host the
    Oct. 8-9 South East European Cooperation ministerial meeting. During
    that meeting Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina will sign an agreement on
    confidence-building measures.

    The initiative was launched in Sofia in July, 1996, during a
    meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of South-East European
    countries, which decided to start a long-term process of multilateral
    cooperation among participating states. As of June 5, 2009 the
    chairmanship-in-office of the South East European Cooperation Process
    (SEECP) has been taken over by Turkey.

    On Oct. 13 Davutoglu will pay a one-day visit to neighboring Syria, a
    visit which involves a symbolic gesture reflecting remarkable progress
    in bilateral relations between the two countries. Davutoglu and his
    Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Moallem, signed an accord to end visa
    requirements and signed a bilateral cooperation accord un e accord,
    called the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council Agreement, is
    similar to the mechanism between Turkey and Iraq.

    During the one day visit, Davutoglu and Moallem will hold the first
    part of their meeting in Aleppo. The second part of the meeting will
    be held in Gaziantep after the two ministers walk across the border.

    Another development in October will be that Davutoglu and Erdogan
    will go to Pakistan for an official visit on Oct. 25-26. There is
    possibility that they might go to Afghanistan, according to diplomatic
    sources.
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