WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had last Monday sent a letter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan regarding detention of eleven Turkish soldiers by U.S. forces in northern Iraq, sources said on Wednesday.
Sources in Washington D.C. said that Rumsfeld's letter had expressed the U.S. administration's opinions about the event in Sulaimania.
Sources said Rumsfeld had probably sent such a letter to Erdogan instead of National Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul upon the instructions of U.S. President George W. Bush administration.
Recalling that Erdogan and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had earlier discussed the event on the phone, sources said that Rumsfeld had sent such a letter as he could have felt the necessity of expressing the U.S. administration's opinions clearly.
(MS-AÖ) 16.07.2003