Middle East Digest: June 5, 2008

Bureau of Public Affairs
June 5, 2008

The Middle East Digest provides text and audio from the Daily Press Briefing. For the full briefings, please visit http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/.

From the Daily Press Briefing of June 5, 2008:

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QUESTION: Another subject. On Turkey --

MR. MCCORMACK: What a surprise.

QUESTION: Mr. McCormack, Turkey and Iran have been carrying today air strikes against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq. Turkish General Ilker Basbug said that the two countries have been sharing intelligence and plan more attacks. Any comment on that?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, certainly, we will have a continuing discussion with the Turkish Foreign Minister today about our common concern; fighting the PKK, as well as Turkish cooperation with Iraq, which has been quite good of late in fighting the PKK. I can’t speak to any possible exchanges or links between Turkey and Iran in cooperation against the PKK.

Yeah.

QUESTION: One more question?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah. Lambros, go ahead.

QUESTION: Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, speaking at the Atlantic Council day before yesterday, stated that democracy in Turkey is strong, answering to a question on the constitutional crisis created artificially by some unwise Turkish judges against the entire Erdogan government, the President of the Republic of Abdullah Gul, and above all, democracy in Turkey. Could you please clarify the U.S. position on this crucial matter?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, ultimately, this is an issue that the Turkish people – in this case, Turkish courts – need to wrestle with. We are strong supporters of democracy in Turkey and Turkish democracy, and we have faith in Turkish democracy. But ultimately, these questions about politics and religion and different social values are going to have to be ones that are resolved within the context of Turkish law, politics, and their constitution.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: This is on – did the Secretary call Palestinian President Abbas today?

MR. MCCORMACK: Mm-hmm. She did.

QUESTION: What was the content, roughly, of the conversation? And did, specifically, the issue of the possibility of Abbas renewing contacts with Hamas come up, and what did she say to that?

MR. MCCORMACK: It was one of these calls where periodically she checks in with President Abbas to get his take on where the discussions between the Israelis and the Palestinians stand. Recently, there was a meeting between Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas, prior to Prime Minister Olmert coming over here. So she wanted to touch base with him on that, talk about issues in the region. They did touch on President Abbas’s speech. And I saw a lot of you reporting construed his speech – his remarks as in some way deviating from his previous stance regarding dialogue with Hamas. And he quite clearly reiterated in his remarks, as well as during the conversation with the Secretary, his conditions for any discussion with Hamas have not changed. Those were clearly outlined in Yemen. And that – you know, you can talk to the Palestinians about the extensive list that they have. But to sum it up, it is basically Hamas reverses the coup in Gaza, that they recognize Fatah as leading this Palestinian Government, and that they abide by the commitments of the PLO, and you know, contained within that are a number of conditions that are very similar to those you’ll find in the Quartet statement – the London Quartet statement.

QUESTION: Do you find even him – I mean, I understand there are lots of conditions. And I understand the conditions are, in fact, presumably ones --

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: -- that you would approve. But does it dismay that he’s even talking about talking to them even with, you know, conditions? I mean, it may be that he’s moving toward talking to them without --

MR. MCCORMACK: No. No, we don’t detect any movement at all. And I recall that – I think it’s been a month or a month and a half ago – we were in sort of a similar cycle of news stories that came out, and really with the same flaw in them in that they did not pick up on that – his points about the conditions. And I think that’s kind of the same case we have here today. 

QUESTION: Can I just give you our readout from Saeb Erekat, who said --

MR. MCCORMACK: Sure.

QUESTION: -- that Rice called Abbas and told him that Olmert had assured the United States the peace process would continue, President Abbas told her he was ready to continue to peace process; Abu Mazen complained about settlements, she told him U.S. officials discussed the issue with Olmert; Abbas told her he had launched an initiative to implement the Yemeni initiative and hopes that Hamas would respond, but she did not say anything about that. Does that all sound right to you?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, you know, again, I’ve explained it the way that I would put it from our side in terms of the dialogue with Hamas. They did talk about settlements, and the Secretary reiterated our views on that. They – and the Palestinians understand that. And in terms of Prime Minister Olmert’s commitment, I don’t know that she underlined that for him, but I think he understands it well. And I’ll reiterate our view that both sides, both Prime Minister Olmert as well as President Abbas, are committed to the process.

QUESTION: Yesterday, President Abbas had some pretty strong reaction to Senator Obama’s speech saying that the capital of Jerusalem should remain undivided.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: I was wondering if he brought that up with the Secretary and whether he was concerned that that was going to affect your current negotiations right now.

MR. MCCORMACK: I don’t – I don’t know if he brought up or not. But as I said yesterday, our policy is well known. It’s clear. It’s consistent. We talk about it almost every single day in terms of the outlines of it. And we are going to continue to act in the best interests of the United States and furthering that policy without respect to the presidential politics that is clearly ongoing.