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Turkey – United States 'in consensus' over Syria

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had a phone meeting last evening with Barack Obama over the growing violence in Syria. According to a White House statement, Turkey and the United States agreed on the necessity of Gaddafi’s departure from Libya, as well as condemning Syrian leader Assad’s ”violent acts against his own citizens”.

Turkish news  network NTV has indicated that following his phone meeting with Obama, PM Erdoğan called the Syrian leader Assad to convey the ‘US-Turkish joint position’. The same news network also made a reference to Debka.com, an intelligence analysis website deemed to have close ties to the Israeli intelligence, indicating that Erdoğan and Assad had been holding regular phone meetings in the last 6 weeks since the revolts started, adding that Erdoğan had also been informing Obama on his diplomatic progress with Assad, as well as getting the Turkish Intelligence Organization’s (MIT) Damascus office to share up to date information with the CIA, which is currently unable to run full-scale intelligence operations in Syria.

As a response to a press question on the matter, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan commented: ”I have clearly conveyed Mr. Assad our concern regarding recent developments. There are a lot of steps that the Syrian administration has to take. I will soon send them [Syria] a special envoy again; they will arrive in Damascus by Thursday and will meet with the Syrian leadership. The current process is an uncomfortable one for Turkey, and this will be conveyed to the Syrian leadership – however, it is our desire that the Syrian administration soon resolves these difficulties. However, we do not desire nor expect antidemocratic practices, especially an authoritarian, totalitarian and imposing establishment in Syria.”

Turkey - United States 'in consensus' over Syria

 

Author

Akin Unver

Dr. Ünver is an assistant professor of international relations at Kadir Has University, Istanbul.

Previously he was the Ertegün Lecturer of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, Near Eastern Studies department - the only academic to retain this prestigious fellowship for two consecutive years. He conducted his joint post-doctoral studies at the University of Michigan’s Center for European Studies and the Center for the Middle East and North African Studies, where he authored several articles on Turkish politics, most notable of which is ”Turkey’s deep-state and the Ergenekon conundrum”, published by the Middle East Institute.

Born and raised in Ankara, Turkey, he graduated from T.E.D. Ankara College in 1999 and earned his B.A. in International Relations from Bilkent University (2003) and MSc in European Studies from the Middle East Technical University (2005). He received his PhD from the Department of Government, University of Essex, where his dissertation, ‘A comparative analysis of the discourses on the Kurdish question in the European Parliament, US Congress and Turkish National Assembly‘ has won the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) 2010 Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award in Social Sciences.

Akın also assumed entry-level policy positions at the European Union Secretariat-General, Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eurasian Center for Strategic Studies (ASAM) and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (D.C.), as well as teaching positions at the University of Essex (Theories of International Relations) and Sabancı University (Turkey and the Middle East).



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