With the US bowing to Turkey's insistence on punitive action against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, the two nations can look forward to a more harmonious encounter at summit talks this week.
US President George W. Bush is set to welcome his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul to the White House tomorrow morning, shortly before Bush leaves for the Middle East on his first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The leaders are expected to discuss Turkey's long-running bid to join the EU, an aspiration warmly backed by the US in the face of resistance from some EU powerbrokers such as France.
And with Bush seeking to revitalize Middle East peace talks, Turkey's influence with Israel and Arab states will also figure in Gul's Washington talks, as will Iran's nuclear ambitions, the State Department said.
It will be Gul's debut trip to Washington since the Islamist politician took over as Turkey's president in August.
Since then, Turkish opinion has been inflamed by deadly cross-border attacks from northern Iraq by the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and by a push in the US Congress to accuse the old Ottoman Empire of "genocide."
But on both fronts, Turkey's government has grounds for satisfaction as the two presidents bid to reinvigorate the oft-strained partnership between the US and its Muslim-majority NATO ally.
Mark Parris, a former US ambassador to Turkey, said the breakthrough came in November when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan enjoyed a "meeting of minds" with Bush in Washington at the bloody height of the PKK raids.
"Bush used for the first time the expression `common enemy,' which elevated the perceived threat posed by the PKK to US interests," said Parris, an expert on Turkey at the Brookings Institution.
Bush promised Erdogan real-time US intelligence on PKK guerrilla movements across the mountainous border between Turkey and Iraq, and the US acquiesced to Turkish air raids on rebel redoubts.
In return, Parris claims, the Turkish military promised to limit civilian casualties, to eschew overnight stays on Iraqi soil and to avoid actions that could destabilize Iraq more broadly.
Late last month, Gul told the Anatolia news agency that the US support "befits our alliance" and added: "This is how it should be. We could have come to this point earlier."
Ahmet Davutoglu, Erdogan's chief foreign policy adviser, said the joint work against the PKK since the Washington visit has done much to mend US-Turkish fences.
"The Turkish-American cooperation is bearing fruit, we're satisfied with it," he said on Wednesday.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS