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Tuesday, 17 May 2011

Erdogan to Ricciardone: 'No hasty and untimely moves on Syria!'

FLC

"Despite growing international pressure on the Syrian leadership, Turkey believes Bashar al-Assad’s regime should be given more time to make reforms, giving a clear message to the United States that any untimely intervention would be unwelcome. “We want a smooth transformation...,” a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official told the Hürriyet Daily News on Tuesday, after a meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone. The meeting came a day after a senior American military official held talks in Ankara and in İzmir with top Turkish generals. Syria was the key issue discussed during the meeting between Ricciardone and Erdoğan, ... "The number-one issue was Syria, but all the regional developments were discussed,” a Turkish diplomat told the Daily News on Tuesday. The diplomat refused to give more information on the content of the Erdoğan-Ricciardone meeting, which took place at a heliport in Ankara, but said Erdoğan also dispatched his messages to Obama...
The importance of the Ricciardone-Erdoğan meeting was heightened by the fact that it came just a day after U.S. Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Turkey. Cartwright held talks with Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Işık Koşaner and visited the NATO Command in İzmir. According to a diplomat, the primary focus of the talks was the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, but the military officials discussed various matters of common interest, including the NATO operation in Libya and general developments in the Middle East...."
Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 12:51 PM
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