Bush Courts Turkey Amid Protests and Violence
June 27, 2004
U.S. President George W. Bush's first-ever visit to Turkey on Saturday got off to a violent start.
Preceded by a series of protests and bomb blasts, including two last Thursday that injured three people outside the Ankara hotel where Bush is expected to stay and killed another four on a bus in Istanbul, the president's arrival has put Turkish security forces on high alert.
In a dramatic beefing up of security, F-16 warplanes patrolled the skies over Istanbul on Sunday while Turkish commandos are monitoring the Bosporus in rubber boats with mounted machine guns. More than 23,000 Turkish police will be on duty when the NATO summit gets underway in Istanbul on Sunday.
About 20,000 demonstrators, many members of leftist groups, gathered in a Ankara square on Sunday chanting anti-Bush slogans and protesting American policies in the Middle East.
Earlier on Saturday, Turkish police fired tear gas at hordes of stone-throwing leftist protestors, just hours before Bush arrived in the country. The fortress that Ankara came to resemble over the weekend led a Turkish commentator to write: "This visit is making our lives hell."
"Barbaric act"
The president's visit also coincided with the hostage-taking of three Turkish workers in Iraq by militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born terrorist believed to have links to al Qaeda.
The militants have threatened to behead them within 72 hours unless Turkish companies stop working with U.S. forces in Iraq.
The al-Jazeera Arabic television channel showed pictures of the three men crouching in front of masked gunmen and holding up their passports. The same group beheaded a South Korean hostage earlier this week and an American man last month.
On Saturday Bush refused to answer reporters' questions about the kidnappings, but White House spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We're in close contact with the Turkish government on the issue. It is an awful reminder of the barbaric nature of these terrorists, but their acts will not shake the will of free people everywhere."
"A model for the Middle East"
Meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday, Bush vowed to fight hard for Turkey to become a member of the European Union, a line he stressed even during a EU-U.S. summit in Ireland on Saturday morning.
"I will remind people of this good country that I believe ought to be given a date by the EU for your eventual acceptance into the EU," Bush said.
The president also praised Turkey for reconciling democracy with its Muslim tradition and said it could set an example for the Middle East.
"I appreciate so very much the example your country has set on how to be a Muslim country and at the same time a country which embraces democracy and rule of law and freedom," he said.
Bush, who is on a Europe trip to mobilize support for his mission in Iraq, is hoping that his talks with Turkish leaders will improve America's ties with the only Muslim nation in the western alliance.
Bush's relations with Turkey were strained in the run-up to the Iraq war when Turkey's parliament rejected a U.S. request to let American troops use Turkish bases to invade Iraq from the south.
NATO to train Iraqi military
ON Monday, Bush will fly to Istanbul to attend a summit of the 26-nation NATO alliance. On Saturday, NATO nations cautiously agreed to respond to Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's request to train Iraqi security forces.
The agreement is expected to be finalized at the NATO summit that ends Tuesday, a day before the transfer of political power in Iraq.