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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.
QUESTION: 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.
QUESTION: 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?
QUESTION: 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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