{"id":23959,"date":"2010-10-20T16:36:20","date_gmt":"2010-10-20T14:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=23959"},"modified":"2014-01-05T21:21:11","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T19:21:11","slug":"gates-u-s-turkish-alliance-strong-despite-differences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/10\/20\/gates-u-s-turkish-alliance-strong-despite-differences\/","title":{"rendered":"Gates: U.S.-Turkish alliance strong despite differences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0Ben Birnbaum<\/p>\n<p>The Washington Times<\/p>\n<p><strong>Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said Monday that the U.S. remains committed to its alliance with Turkey despite months of high-profile tensions with NATO&#8217;s only Muslim-majority member state.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even as our views and approaches on some issues may differ, we are allies,&#8221; said Mr. Gates in a speech before American Turkish Council Convention. &#8220;We share fundamental interests in the region, and our goals remain the same: a respect for sovereignty and rule of law, economic growth and development, and enduring stability and security.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Turkey, under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has raised eyebrows in the West this year with a number of moves indicating a recalibration of its traditionally staunch pro-Western foreign policy:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 In April, it conducted joint defense drills with Syria.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 In May, it sponsored a Gaza-bound aid ship seeking to break Israel&#8217;s blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory and later threatened to sever its longstanding ties with the Jewish state after nine Turkish nationals were killed in a melee with Israeli commandos.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_23961\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23961\" style=\"width: 220px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23961\" title=\"Gates_US_Turkey\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Gates_US_Turkey.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"208\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-23961\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Defense Secretary Robert Gates (right) presents the Distinguished Defense Award to Turkey&#39;s Minister of National Defense Vecdi Gonul during a ceremony Monday at the American-Turkish Council&#39;s 29th annual conference on U.S.-Turkey relations in Washington. (Associated Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0And in June, it voted against a fourth round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program at the U.N. Security Council.<\/p>\n<p>In his address, Mr. Gates thanked Turkey for its contribution of troops in Afghanistan and praised Turkish leaders for working with the Iraqi government &#8220;to reinforce that nation&#8217;s emerging democracy, encouraging national reconciliation initiatives and working to rebuild defense and security ties with the Iraqi Security Forces.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The United States and Turkey have wisely remembered our friendship during times of agreement and disagreement, and it is incumbent for us to continue to do so,&#8221; he said. <strong>&#8220;There is too much at stake for us not to do so \u2014 for our prosperity, for our security and for the credibility of our alliance.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC.\u00a0<span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/license.icopyright.net\/3.7280?icx_id=\/news\/2010\/oct\/18\/gates-us-turkish-alliance-is-strong\/\">Click here for reprint permission.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0Ben Birnbaum The Washington Times Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said Monday that the U.S. remains committed to its alliance with Turkey despite months of high-profile tensions with NATO&#8217;s only Muslim-majority member state. &#8220;Even as our views and approaches on some issues may differ, we are allies,&#8221; said Mr. Gates in a speech before [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":23961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}