ANKARA - President Ahmet Necdet Sezer received on Monday Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA) Chairman Ercument Kilic and an accompanying delegation.
The meeting lasted nearly one hour at Cankaya Presidential Palace.
Releasing a statement to reporters after the meeting, Kilic said that the assembly, which was established 23 years ago, was now keeping 57 Turkish-American associations under its umbrella.
Noting that Turkish associations abroad and especially in the United States should work as non-governmental organizations to be more beneficial for Turkish lobbying activities.
When a reporter recalled that Turkish-American relations were evaluated with the statements of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and asked whether they had difficulty in the United States about this issue, Kilic said that Turkish people living in the United States and their lobbying activities had a difficulty due to developments occurred since March 1.
Vural Cengiz, next term's chairman of the assembly, said that this was the third problem in the relations between Turkey and the United States in the close history and added that both sides had a mistake in this issue.
Cengiz said that vision of two countries for Middle East were same and added that they wanted a democratic Middle East. He said that increasing Turkish-American relations to a level requiring strategical cooperation was necessary for both countries, region and world peace.
Cengiz said that an intensive public relations activity campaign should be carried on as soon as possible in the United States.
(GC-Öª) 02.06.2003