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Obama and Joe Biden meet with Prime Minister Erdogan at 11:30 am eastern. Obama is seeking cooperation on Iran's nuclear plans. Turkey gets natural gas from Iran. Turkey may want help with Iraq.
President Barack Obama will press Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, one of NATO’s two Muslim members, for more support in curbing Iran’s nuclear program and rebuilding Afghanistan.
In a White House meeting today, Obama will probe Turkey’s willingness, as a member of the United Nations Security Council, to back new sanctions against Iran, an administration official said. The U.S. also wants Turkey to increase its aid to Afghanistan, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Erdogan’s government has been expanding trade ties with Iran, which supplies about 20 percent of Turkey’s natural gas. He visited Tehran in October and said that Iran’s nuclear program, which the U.S. suspects is a cover for weapons development, is “peaceful.”
“American policy makers are going to want to use that new relationship with Iran to take tough messages to Tehran about the nuclear issue,” said Ian Lesser, a Turkish-affairs specialist at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. in Washington. More at Bloomberg
