Sen. Collins calls for expanded U.S. relations with Turkey<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 Sen. Susan Collins R-Maine, who returned from Istanbul, Turkey, last week, spoke on Monday at a conference about the state of America\u2019s relationship with Turkey and how it can be improved.<\/p>\n
The event, the American-Turkish Council\u2019s 30th Annual Conference, was held to facilitate growing ties between the two countries. The conference\u2019s theme was more pertinent after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit Turkey last week, killing more than 600 people.<\/p>\n
Collins happened to be in Turkey when earthquake hit and said she was struck by the amount of the damage and felt for the victims.<\/p>\n
She also focused on foreign relations, and said the relationship between the United States and Turkey has benefitted and can continue to so by increasing trade relationships and counter-terrorism efforts with one another.<\/p>\n
Collins, ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee suggested more be done to increase bilateral trade with Turkey, which has the 16th largest economy in the world.<\/p>\n
Collins said her home state has been particularly helpful with facilitating trade by shipping thousands of cattle for dairy farming to Turkey. \u201cWith a little ingenuity, there are a lot of trade opportunities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Collins also said there are many opportunities for America to help Turkey continue to fight terrorism.<\/p>\n
According to Collins, the United States spends an average of $1 million a day to help Turkey fight terrorism. She said, aside from spending money, the United States should also encourage democratic freedom in the region.<\/p>\n
Panelists who appeared with her \u2014 Ambassador Selim Yenel, deputy undersecretary at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Nuri Colakoglu, president of Dogan Media International; and Philip Gordon, Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs \u2014 discussed efforts such as those outlined by<\/p>\n
Collins as possible reasons for improved favorability of the United States abroad.<\/p>\n
According to Pew Research Center Poll from 2010, 17 percent in Turkey say they approve of the United States, up from a decade low of 9 percent in 2007.<\/p>\n
While Collins said Turkey-U.S. relations have improved in recent years, she said she still has \u201cconcerns\u201d with the deterioration of the relationship between Israel and Turkey and the how journalists are treated in Turkey.<\/p>\n
\u201cAddressing these issues would further enhance Turkey\u2019s chances of being an exemplar of democracy in the Middle East,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Despite her reservations, Collins said Turkey has \u201cmore influence than ever before in our modern era to be a good role model. This is Turkey\u2019s time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
via Sen. Collins calls for expanded U.S. relations with Turkey | SeacoastOnline.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sen. Collins calls for expanded U.S. relations with Turkey WASHINGTON \u2014 Sen. Susan Collins R-Maine, who returned from Istanbul, Turkey, last week, spoke on Monday at a conference about the state of America\u2019s relationship with Turkey and how it can be improved. The event, the American-Turkish Council\u2019s 30th Annual Conference, was held to facilitate growing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":782328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7426,7427,2100],"class_list":["post-46282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-american-turkish-council","tag-sen-collins","tag-us-turkey-relations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46282","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=46282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}