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  • Remarks By President Obama And Prime Minister Erdogan Of Turkey Afte

    REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA AND PRIME MINISTER ERDOGAN OF TURKEY AFTER MEETING

    The White House
    Office of the Press Secretary
    December 07, 2009

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: I want to extend the warmest of welcomes to Prime
    Minister Erdogan. I'm glad that I, personally, and the American
    people have a chance to reciprocate the wonderful hospitality that
    was extended to me when I visited Turkey in April.

    As I said when I had the great honor of addressing the Turkish
    Parliament in Ankara, I am strongly committed to creating the best
    possible relationship between Turkey and the United States.

    Turkey is a NATO ally, which means that we are pledged to defend each
    other. There are strong ties between our countries as a consequence
    of the Turkish American community that has been established here. We
    have had the opportunity to work together during this recent financial
    crisis, given Turkey's role as a member of the G20. And given Turkey's
    history as a secular democratic state that respects the rule of law,
    but is also a majority Muslim nation, it plays a critical role I think
    in helping to shape mutual understanding and stability and peace not
    only in its neighborhood but around the world.

    During the course of our discussions here, we've had the opportunity
    to survey a wide range of issues that both the United States and
    Turkey are concerned about. I thanked Prime Minister Erdogan and the
    Turkish people for their outstanding contributions to stabilizing
    Afghanistan. We discussed our joint role in helping Iraq achieve the
    kind of independence and prosperity that I think has been advanced as a
    consequence of the election law finally being passed over the weekend.

    We discussed issues of regional peace, and I indicated to the Prime
    Minister how important it is to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear
    capacity in a way that allows Iran to pursue peaceful nuclear energy
    but provides assurances that it will abide by international rules
    and norms, and I believe that Turkey can be an important player in
    trying to move Iran in that direction.

    And we discussed the continuing role that we can play as NATO allies
    in strengthening Turkey's profile within NATO and coordinating more
    effectively on critical issues like missile defense.

    I also congratulated the Prime Minister on some courageous steps
    that he has taken around the issue of normalizing Turkish/Armenian
    relations, and encouraged him to continue to move forward along
    this path.

    We reaffirmed the shared commitment to defeat terrorist activity
    regardless of where it occurs. I expressed condolences to the Prime
    Minister and the Turkish people for the recent terrorist attack
    that was taken there and pledged U.S. support in trying to bring the
    perpetrators of this violence to justice.

    And finally, I complimented the Prime Minister for the steps that
    he's taken, often very difficult steps, in reintegrating religious
    minorities and ethnic minorities within Turkey into the democratic
    and political process, and indicated to him that we want to be as
    supportive as possible in further steps that he can take, for example,
    assuring the continuation of the Halki Seminary and addressing the
    vital needs of continuing the ecumenical patriarchy within Turkey.

    Over all, just to summarize, I am incredibly optimistic about the
    prospect of stronger and stronger ties between the United States
    and Turkey that will be based not only on our NATO relationship,
    our military-to-military relationship, our strategic relationship,
    but also increasing economic ties.

    And one of the concrete outcomes of this trip is to follow through on
    discussions that I had with both Prime Minister Erdogan and President
    Gul in Turkey to stand up a strategic working group around economic
    issues and improving commercial ties. That will be launched with
    the participation of Secretary of Commerce Locke and our U.S. Trade
    Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk, along with Turkish counterparts.

    And we think that there is enormous potential for us to grow trade
    and commercial ties between the two countries.

    Turkey is a great country. It is growing in influence around the
    world. And I am pleased that America can call Turkey a friend, and
    I'm pleased that I'm able to call Prime Minister Erdogan personally
    a friend. I'm grateful for his trip here and look forward to many
    years of collaboration with him to observe both the prosperity of
    the American people and the Turkish people.

    Thank you.

    PRIME MINISTER ERDOGAN: (As translated.) Thank you very much. I'm very
    grateful for the hospitality that both myself and my delegation have
    been shown since our arrival here. And I would like to once again
    express my thanks for that hospitality.

    The fact that the President visited Turkey on his first overseas trip
    and that he described and characterized Turkish-U.S. relations as a
    model partnership has been very important for us politically and in
    the process that we all look forward to in the future as well. And
    important steps are now being taken in order to continue to build
    on our bilateral relations so as to give greater meaning to the term
    "model partnership."

    Of course, there are many sides to the development of this relationship
    -- be it in the economic area, in the areas of science, art,
    technology, political areas and military areas.

    We have also appointed two people from our side to act as counterparts
    in order to liaise with their American counterparts to continue on
    this process. Those two people are the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Ali
    Babacan; and the Minister of State responsible for economic affairs,
    Mr. Zafer Caglayan on the Turkish side. I do believe that this group
    is going to work to take the Turkish-American relations forward,
    not just in the economic area, but in all areas in general.

    We, of course, have -- we take joint steps on regional issues. This
    is in the Middle East, in Iraq, with respect to the Iranian nuclear
    program. We continue to have joint activity in Afghanistan, and the
    Turkish armed forces have taken over the command of the forces there
    for a third time with the additional support that we have sent to
    Afghanistan in the last couple of months. And there are steps that we
    have taken with respect to training activity and other activities in
    the context of provisional reconstruction teams, and we continue on
    that. We've had an opportunity to continue discussing those issues
    during our visit here.

    Another important area, of course, is energy. Turkey is a transit
    country for energy issues. And the agreement has been signed for
    Nabucco and we are ready to take some important steps with respect
    to Nabucco.

    We continue to talk with Azerbaijan. I do believe that positive
    progress will be made in this area. In addition to Azerbaijan, of
    course, there is the importance of companies like Statoil, Total,
    and British Petroleum and others.

    We have also discussed relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia,
    which is of great importance. This is important in the context of
    Turkish-Armenian relations. We have discussed the Minsk Group and what
    the Minsk Group can do -- the United States, Russia, and France -- to
    add more impetus to that process. I can say that to have more impetus
    in the Minsk process is going to have a very positive impact on the
    overall process, because the normalization process between Turkey and
    Armenia is very much related to these issues. As the administration
    in Turkey, we are determined to move forward in this area.

    Another important issue with respect for us in Turkey is the fight
    against terrorism. And there was a statement that was made in this
    very room on the 5th of November 2007, which was very important in
    that context, because at the time we had declared the separatist
    terrorist organization as the common enemy of the United States,
    Turkey, and Iraq, because terrorism is the enemy of all mankind.

    Our sensitivity and response to terrorism is what we have displayed
    when the twin towers were hit here in the United States. Wherever
    a terrorist attack takes place our reaction is always the same,
    because terrorism does not have a religion -- a homeland. They have
    no homeland, no religion whatsoever.

    We have also had opportunity to discuss what we can do jointly in
    the region with regard to nuclear programs. We as Turkey stand ready
    to do whatever we can to ensure a diplomatic solution to the nuclear
    issue in our region. And we stand ready as Turkey to do whatever we
    can do with respect to relations between Israel and the Palestinians,
    and Israel and Syria, because I do believe that, first and foremost,
    the United States, too, has important responsibility in trying to
    achieve global peace.

    And we, too, must lend all kinds of support that we can in our regions
    and -- in our respective regions and in the world in general in trying
    to achieve global peace, because this is not the time to make enemies,
    it's the time to make friends. And I believe that we must move hand
    in hand towards a bright future.

    Thank you once again.

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you.

    All right, where's Ben Feller? There you are.

    Q Thank you sir. I'd like to ask you briefly about a domestic issue,
    that being the economy, heading to your speech tomorrow. Do you support
    the use of federal bailout money to fund job creation programs? Is
    that an appropriate use of that money? Is that something that you
    plan to support tomorrow?

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, Ben, it would be a mistake for me to step
    on my speech tomorrow by giving you the headline today.

    Q Not that big a mistake. (Laughter.)

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: But let me speak generally about what we've seen.

    On Friday we got the best jobs report that we've gotten in a very
    long time. And it significantly beat expectations. At minimum, it
    showed that for all practical purposes, we've stopped losing jobs. And
    that's consistent with the fact that in the third quarter we saw the
    economy grow.

    My first job when I came into office was to make sure that we got
    the financial crisis under control and that we tried to limit the
    devastating effects that it was having on the real economy. We have
    had a very tough year, and we've lost millions of jobs. But at least
    now we are moving in the right direction.

    What my speech tomorrow will focus on is the fact that having gotten
    the financial crisis under control. Having finally moved into positive
    territory when it comes to economic growth, our biggest challenge now
    is making sure that job growth matches up with economic growth. And
    what we've seen is, is that companies shed jobs very quickly, partly
    induced by the panic of what was happening on Wall Street, and they
    are still tentative about hiring back all those people who were laid
    off. Also what we're seeing is some long-term trends where companies
    are becoming so efficient in terms of productivity that they may feel
    that they can produce the same amount of goods or services without
    as many employees.

    So those present some particular challenges, given the fact that
    we lost over 3 million jobs just in the first quarter of this year
    before any of the steps we took had a chance to take effect.

    With respect to TARP specifically, I think you saw stories today and
    you've seen stories over the last several weeks that TARP has turned
    out to be much cheaper than we had expected, although not cheap. It
    means that some of that money can be devoted to deficit reduction.

    And the question is are there selective approaches that are consistent
    with the original goals of TARP -- for example, making sure that small
    businesses are still getting lending -- that would be appropriate in
    accelerating job growth?

    And I will be addressing that tomorrow. But I do think that, although
    we've stabilized the financial system, one of the problems that we're
    still seeing all the time -- and I heard about it when it was in
    Allentown just this past week -- was the fact that small businesses
    and some medium-sized businesses are still feeling a huge credit
    crunch. They cannot get the loans that they need to make capital
    investments that would allow them to then expand employment. And so
    that's a particular area where we might be able to make a difference.

    Is there somebody in the Turkish delegation that wants to call on
    a reporter?

    Q Mr. President, is there any new and concrete U.S. action plan for
    disarmament and the elimination of the PKK terror organization in
    northern Iraq? Thank you, sir.

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, what the Prime Minister and I have discussed
    is coordinating closely in dealing with the problem of the PKK. We
    have stated before and I have reaffirmed since I came into office
    that the United States considers PKK a terrorist organization, and
    that the threat that it poses not only in Turkey but also in Iraq
    is one that is of deep concern. And as NATO allies, we are bound to
    help each other defend our territories. More broadly, I think that
    it is important for us to have a consistent position with respect to
    terrorism wherever it takes place.

    So we discussed how we can coordinate militarily. I will tell you
    that with respect to the issue of the PKK, I think that the steps
    that the Prime Minister has taken in being inclusive towards the
    Kurdish community in Turkey is very helpful, because one of the
    things we understand is, is that terrorism cannot just be dealt with
    militarily; there is also social and political components to it that
    have to be recognized.

    With respect to Iraq, I think the degree to which the Kurdish
    population within Iraq feels effectively represented within the
    central government in Baghdad, to the extent that we can resolve some
    long-term pressing issues like Kirkuk, the more I think that Kurds
    will recognize that their interests are not in supporting any kind of
    military activity but rather in working through conflicts politically,
    in a way that allows everybody to be prosperous. And that's the kind
    of process that we would encourage.

    Okay? Thank you very much, everybody. Happy holidays.
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