Ankara bristles at White House arms ultimatum claim

Ankara bristles at White House arms ultimatum claim
No country can issue warnings against Turkey: Davutoglu

ANKARA (Today’s Zaman) -- Turkish officials have angrily denied a news report that President Barack Obama has personally warned Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Turkey stands little chance of getting weapons it wants to buy from the U.S. unless it changes its stance on Iran and Israel.

“No country can issue warnings against Turkey. No one, particularly, can talk to the prime minister in such a tone,” said Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of the report, which appeared in the Financial Times on Sunday.

Citing an anonymous U.S. official, the daily reported that Obama has told Erdogan that some of Turkey’s actions have “caused questions to be raised” in Congress and thus Turkey’s weapon requests could be harder to move through Congress.

The warning came during the two leaders’ meeting on the sidelines of a G-20 gathering in Toronto in late June, according to the report.

“The president has said to Erdogan that some of the actions that Turkey has taken have caused questions to be raised on the Hill (Congress) … about whether we can have confidence in Turkey as an ally. That means that some of the requests Turkey has made of U.S., for example in providing some of the weaponry that it would like to fight the (outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party) PKK, will be harder for U.S. to move through Congress,” a senior U.S. administration official told the daily.

There was no warning and these claims are completely unfounded,” Davutoglu said during a visit to the southeastern province of Kahramanmarag.

Weeks before the Toronto meeting, Turkey voted against sanctions on Iran at the UN Security Council, “disappointing” the U.S., and its ties with Israel took a nosedive after Israeli commandos killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American on an aid ship trying to break blockade of Gaza on May 31.

But the White House appears to be focused more on the ongoing cooperation with Turkey, rather than disagreements on Iran and Israel. “I really don’t know where they would have divined that from,” Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton told journalists on Monday aboard Air Force One when asked about the Financial Times report. “The president and Erdogan did speak about 10 days ago and they talked about Iran and the flotilla and other issues related to that. But we obviously have an ongoing dialogue with them. But no such ultimatum was issued.”

Photo: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu