U.S. Senate And House Of Representatives Delegations To Visit Turkey

ANKARA - U.S. Senate and House of Representatives delegations are expected to visit Turkey within next week.
Diplomatic sources said that one Senate member and one House of Representatives member will hold meetings together with their delegation in Ankara within next week.
Meanwhile, Eric Edelman, who was appointed as Ankara ambassador of the United States, is expected to come to Ankara on Friday.
Edelman will start his term in office by presenting his credentials to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. Edelman is expected to present his letter of credence rapidly after his arrival.
Edelman was born in Columbus-Ohio on December 14, 1952. He entered U.S. State Department in 1980 and he participated in the delegation which held negotiations for giving autonomy to West Bank and Gaza regions in his first mission.
Edelman, who worked in Soviet Union as special advisor of U.S. State Department between 1984-1986, then worked as Director of East European Desk between 1989-1990. He was appointed as Prague Embassy Undersecretary in 1993.
Edelman, who also worked as Finland Ambassador, became deputy chief assistant of U.S. President George Bush's National Security Council Chairmanship and national security advisor of Vice President Dick Cheney in 2001.
Edelman had earlier said regarding the news of Washington Post daily which said that relations between Turkey and the United States were tense and getting worse that they passed through a rough road, but there had been ups and downs in bilateral relations also in the past. Expressing belief that there were many things that the two countries could do, Edelman said that the two countries had been allies for 50 years. He stated that they had built their strategic partnership in 1990s and now, both Turkey and the United States were facing different strategic atmospheres in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks and Iraq war. Now, Edelman said, they had to re-build that strategic partnership taking into consideration the new strategic realities. Expressing full belief that the two countries could achieve that, Edelman noted that they had to work very much for that.
(GC-AÖ) 13.08.2003