WASHINGTON (AA) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that the United States shared the concerns of Turkey about the PKK and noted that exchange of information at the point of intelligence continues.
''Of course, we don't think it is sufficient. We want (the cooperation) to be taken further. We hope to get the support of both the coalition forces and the Iraq administration in struggle against the PKK camps in north of Iraq,'' Erdogan said.
Erdogan replied to the questions of reporters following his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush.
When a journalist reminded Erdogan statement of Bush that relations between Turkey and the United States were very important strategic relations, and asked, ''as Turkey, what do we understand from the strategic dimension in those relations,'' he said Turkey was the strongest country in the region having representation authority particularly with its geo-strategic position.
Erdogan said Turkey met the requirements of this jointly with the United States without having any problem.
''For example, Afghanistan is one of them. They are seriously interested in the information we have given on Afghanistan issue. Turkey's taking over the command of ISAF twice in two years is the clearest expression of the strategic relationship and partnership. Similarly, Cyprus and Turkey's actual policy in Iraq is an expression of strategic unity. This process will go on from now on,'' Erdogan said.
BROADER MIDDLE EAST INITIATIVE
When a journalist said Broader Middle East Initiative was spread to the Caucasus and the Middle East, and asked what Turkey was ready to do, what kind of a cooperation would be exhibited, and where Turkish democracy's leadership peculiarity would interfere, Erdogan said Turkey, Italy and Yemen undertook assignment as democratic partners in ''Sea Island'' process in Broader Middle East Initiative and recalled that co-chairmanship was given to those three countries.
Erdogan said, ''the target here is the reforms, acceleration of democratic process, transition to democracy, human rights, supremacy of law, attitudes against regimes which put pressure, security issue and the steps that should be taken for development of those countries. Turkey currently continues in this direction. The visits which we paid to those countries on Middle East geography and the emphasis which we particularly made on those issues during our talks with them are all open and clear examples of this. I mean our visits to Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, North African countries, Morocco, and Tunisia are all steps of it and this will continue. We will visit Lebanon after we return to Turkey from here. We will talk those issues there and we will especially explain them transition to multi-party system as some of them have it and some of them don't. We will express Turkey's readiness to expend assistance them on those issues. Now, Iraq sends its political parties to Turkey and those political parties are given seminars in ruling and opposition parties. We take steps to accelerate democracy process in those countries. Apart from this, we say the military and police training, which we always give, will continue.''
When asked what was the response of Bush about Turkey's uneasiness regarding PKK terrorist organization, Erdogan said, ''they share our uneasiness.''
''Recently, exchange of information in the aspect of intelligence continues between Turkey and the United States. However, it is not enough. We want to further develop this. Firstly, we focus on settlement and strengthening of the administration in Iraq. Bush also stressed this. I hope we will receive the necessary support from coalition forces and Iraqi administration against camps of PKK terrorist organization in the north of Iraq,'' he added.
Upon a question, Erdogan said that they also discussed Syria issue during the meeting.
Erdogan said, ''Turkey has a 800 km of border with Syria. We have bilateral meetings with Syria which started especially within this year. During those meetings, we talked about steps we can take to bring Syria to our line as well as the steps we have taken for our relations.''
''In the past, we did not have exchange of intelligence with Syria, but recently we have started this exchange,'' he added.

2005-06-08