ANKARA - Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan received on Monday members of the U.S. Congress Turkey Working Group who are currently in Turkey to hold a series of talks.
After the talks held at Erdogan`s office at the parliament, co-chairman of the working group Edward Whitfield and U.S. Senator from Nebraska Benjamin Nelson held a press conference.
Whitfield stated that Turkish public`s disappointment regarding the PKK terrorism exported from Iraq, the general situation in Iraq, the bill introduced to the U.S. Congress regarding the allegations on so-called Armenian genocide and the prospective effects of such bill in case of its adoption were the main issues discussed during the talks.
Moreover, Turkey`s EU membership process, France and Germany`s prejudiced stances against this issue and unification of Cyprus were also on the agenda of the meeting, Whitfield said.
Upon a question on his opinion regarding the possibility of Turkey`s waging a cross-border operation to Iraq, Whitfield said that they thought USA should take some concrete steps on the issue, however, they did not encourage Turkey to carry out a military operation as well.
Replying to a question on whether the U.S. warplanes` violation of Turkish airspace was discussed during the meeting, Senator Nelson said that talks regarding such "violation" still continued and they hoped the conflict could be solved in a positive way.
Turkey-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group chairman Egemen Bagis will host a dinner in honor of the guest delegation this evening.
The U.S. delegation, which is expected to proceed to Istanbul on Tuesday, will depart from Turkey on Friday.