Last Monday – the same day that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Washington to meet with President Obama – ten United States senators wrote the letter below to Turkey’s Ambassador to the United States Nabi Sensoy – expressing concern about the recent deterioration of relations between Turkey and Israel. (Sensoy has since resigned, but that is another story)
The senators can hardly be faulted for raising this issue. The United States has a clear interest in constructive Turkish-Israeli relations, particularly since Turkey has served as an effective mediator between Israel and Syria and is the Muslim country with the most significant history of positive relations with Israel.
The letter is also fair because it reaffirms the importance of the U.S.-Turkey relationship and is careful not to convey the message that the United States is singularly concerned about Israel and is ungrateful for Turkey’s cooperation in other areas.
But I hope that these Senators take the same level of interest in those issues on which the United States and Turkey are working together including stabilizing Iraq, diversifying Europe’s energy supply and integrating the Middle East into the global economy.
The letter is below. The pdf – courtesy of the Weekly Standard – can be found here.
— Ben Katcher
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