Asli Aydintasbas, a columnists of the Sabah daily who was in attendance at the annual meeting of the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington D.C., explained her impressions in her column on Wednesday.
''For the first time in my life, I engulfed in sadness when I entered the conference hall. ATC meetings are not ordinary events. In fact, those meetings were used to be held with the participation of leading figures from the Turkish government, business circles and the General Staff. American senators, military officials, bureaucrats and executives of giant companies were used to attend the ball prior to the meetings. Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline project was shaped during those meetings. But this year, the conference hall was half empty.
Of course it is not a problem of bad organization but is the sign of 'confidence crisis' in bilateral relations. I talked to a high-level American official at dinner and he told me that everybody was fed up with talking about Turkish-American strategic partnership. He also said that there were obvious problems. He did not attend the ATC meetings, but complained about the movie ''Valley of Wolves-Iraq'', the visit (to Ankara) of Hamas delegation, distressing developments at the (Turkish) Central Bank and the possibility of legalization of the Koran classes by the government. He was afraid of Turkey's metamorphosis into a new Malaysia.
This was the sad view I observed in Washington D.C. in the spring of 2006. I asked another high-level American official whether he would attend the ATC meetings. He told me that he rather prefer to go to a dinner to be hosted by the Armenian National Congress.
As usual, the resolution on the so-called Armenian genocide will be on the agenda in April. Turkey do not rely on support of the Jewish lobby in Washington D.C any longer. Some say that the resolution might have a coercing impact on U.S. senators. In that case, we will have to forget about 50-year Turkey-US friendship.''