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Obama, Erdogan Find Shared Interests
(Washington Post) Soner Cagaptay - Turkish media outlets reported that after Prime Minister Erdogan's mother died last month, President Obama called him and the two "spoke for 45 minutes about their feelings." This personal rapport is the foundation of a new U.S.-Turkish relationship. In June 2010, for example, Turkey voted at the UN Security Council against a proposal for U.S.-sponsored sanctions on Iran. Obama told Erdogan how upsetting Turkey's UN vote had been to him, and Ankara stopped defending Tehran. Turkey has also emerged as the region's key opponent of the Assad regime's brutal crackdown on demonstrators, with Ankara supporting and hosting members of the opposition. The writer is director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.