|
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan will travel to the United States in
late May, a Turkish diplomatic source said on
Wednesday, on a trip Ankara hopes will help repair
ties strained over the Iraq conflict.
The source said precise dates were yet to be
finalized. The U.S. embassy in Ankara was not
immediately able to confirm the trip.
Ties between the NATO allies chilled after the
Turkish parliament refused in March 2003 to let U.S.
forces invade northern Iraq from Turkish soil -- a
decision again criticized last weekend by Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Turkey later agreed to send troops to Iraq but had
to withdraw the offer due to opposition in that
country, especially from Iraqi Kurds.
More recently, Erdogan has criticized Washington's
failure to rein in Iraq's Kurds, whom Ankara
suspects of wanting to build their own state -- a
move Turks fear may revive separatism among their
own Kurdish population.
Opinion polls point to a sharp rise in anti-American
feeling in once staunchly pro-U.S. Turkey. ``Metal
Storm,'' a novel depicting a U.S. military attack on
Turkey in the near future, has topped the
best-seller list for months.
``The anti-Americanism is worrying. It seems to be
escalating and we need to do more to counter it,''
the source said, adding that Erdogan would visit
California and Washington.
But he said anti-American comments by members of
Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
had declined sharply since the February visit to
Ankara of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The AKP has Islamist roots but denies any religious
agenda, describing itself as a conservative
democratic party.
Erdogan's visit to Washington will come shortly
before the departure of the U.S. ambassador to
Ankara, Eric Edelman, who has come under strong
personal attack in parts of the leftwing and
nationalist press.
Reuters
Top |
® 