[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 43, Number 45 (Monday, November 12, 2007)]
[Pages 1458-1461]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Following a Meeting With Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of 
Turkey and an Exchange With Reporters

November 5, 2007

    President Bush. Mr. Prime Minister, welcome back to the Oval Office. 
As usual, we had a very constructive conversation. Turkey is a strategic 
partner and strong ally of America. I value our friendship at the state 
level, at the personal level.
    We had a long discussion about a common concern, and that concern is 
the PKK. PKK is a terrorist organization. They're an enemy of Turkey; 
they're an enemy of Iraq; and they're an enemy of the United States. We 
have talked about how we can work together to protect ourselves from the 
PKK.
    We talked about the need to have better intelligence sharing. In 
order to chase down people who murder people, you need good 
intelligence. And we talked about the need for our military to stay in 
constant contact. To this end, the Prime Minister and I have set up a 
tripartite arrangement, for his number-two man in the military to stay 
in touch with our number-two man and General Petraeus.
    The Prime Minister strongly urged that the United States work with 
leaders in Iraq to cut off money flows to the PKK. The point is, is that 
I made it very clear to the Prime Minister we want to work in a close 
way to deal with this problem.
    We discussed a lot of other issues. I do want to thank Prime 
Minister Erdogan of Turkey for hosting the Neighbors Conference. It was 
a very important conference to help the people of Iraq realize the 
blessings of liberty. Thank you, sir.
    And finally, I briefed the Prime Minister on Secretary Rice's recent 
phone call with President Musharraf. I asked the Secretary to call him 
to convey this message: that we expect there to be elections as soon as 
possible, and that the President should remove his military uniform. 
Previous to his decision,

[[Page 1459]]

we made it clear that these emergency measures were--would undermine 
democracy. Having said that, I did remind the Prime Minister that 
President Musharraf has been a strong fighter against extremists and 
radicals, that he understands the dangers posed by radicals and 
extremists. After all, they tried to kill him three or four times. And 
our hope is that he will restore democracy as quickly as possible.
    And I thank you for your leadership and the strong example your 
country has set. And I've had a chance to personally congratulate you on 
your party's rather significant victory.
    Welcome.
    Prime Minister Erdogan. First of all, I'd like to thank the 
President. I would like to express that I'm very pleased to have this 
opportunity to meet after our brief discussions during the U.N. General 
Assembly.
    The focus of our discussions today was mostly on terrorism, 
international terrorism, and also the PKK and the activities of the PKK 
terrorist organization in northern Iraq. As strategic partners, we are 
fighting jointly against international terrorism in the world. As part 
of our joint efforts to combat terrorism, we spoke about what we can do 
against the separatist terrorist organization, which has deployed itself 
in northern Iraq.
    As you know, on the 17th of October, the Turkish Parliament 
overwhelmingly--almost every single member of the Turkish Parliament--
gave an authority to our Government--the authority, the mandate, in 
other words, to do a military cross-border incursion, if necessary. This 
is a mandate for a cross-border operation that solely aims the PKK. It 
cannot and it does not cover civilians.
    On this point, of course, we place priority on intelligence sharing. 
It is important to work jointly and in solidarity with our strategic 
partner, the United States, because they have declared the PKK as a 
terrorist organization. And it is important that we fight jointly 
against the leaders, the murderers of this organization.
    We are working not just to fight against terrorism; we're working 
together to establish peace in the world in general. For this, we worked 
together in Somalia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. We are currently 
engaged in a similar effort in Afghanistan. And we are of the opinion 
that it is necessary to continue to work to fight against international 
terrorism. I believe that this is what we must do to achieve peace and 
order in the region. And we have had an opportunity to extensively 
discuss these issues.
    We have had an opportunity to discuss various issues, such as 
dissolving of the terrorist camps, the capture of leaders of the 
terrorist organization, or other steps that may be necessary--cutting 
off logistical support, et cetera. And we believe that it is very 
important for us to work jointly on a diplomatic, political, and 
military level and cooperate.
    It is my wish that this work that we do take up jointly will yield 
results in the shortest time possible because this is also important for 
stability of Iraq itself and stability of northern Iraq, because their 
stability is our stability. And any kind of disorder or difficulty, 
there is also a difficulty, a disorder for us, a problem for us.
    There is a lot of difficulty in the region in general. And I believe 
that it falls to us--it's a responsibility for us as strategic partners 
to work to ensure that we overcome these difficulties and solve them. I 
have also seen that the President and I agree on these points, and I'm 
very happy to see that.
    With respect to Pakistan, it is also our desire to see a return to 
democracy in the shortest time possible. We as Turkey have always been 
against extremism, and we will continue to be against it, because the 
way out never is through extremism. The middle of the road is the 
correct way to go. And therefore, I believe it will be important to make 
sure people follow that path, as opposed to others. And we will share 
our views and opinion in our discussions with our Pakistani colleagues.
    It will also be proper to have the elections take place in Pakistan 
as planned. And I believe that there lies the bright future for the 
country of Pakistan.
    President Bush. Thanks.
    We'll take two questions a side. Jennifer [Jennifer Loven, 
Associated Press]. Hold on a second.

Pakistani Election

    Q. Thank you, sir. It was just last week that you said again that 
your administration stands with people who yearn for liberty.

[[Page 1460]]

How does that square with continuing to partner with Pakistan, given 
what's going on now and given that President Musharraf has gone back on 
promises before?
    President Bush. As I said earlier in my statement, that we made it 
clear to the President that we would hope he wouldn't have declared the 
emergency powers he declared. Now that he's made that decision, I hope 
now that he hurry back to elections. And at the same time, we want to 
continue working with him to fight these terrorists and extremists who 
not only have tried to kill him, but have used parts of his country from 
which to launch attacks into Afghanistan and/or are plotting attacks on 
America.
    You call on who you want. Yes.

Turkey and Iraq

    Q. Mr. President, what would be your reaction if there would be a 
Turkish operation into northern Iraq?
    President Bush. First of all, I don't like to answer hypothetical 
questions. But I can tell you that we--he asked what would my reaction 
be if there was an attack. Well, that's a hypothetical question. But 
what we did talk about is to make sure that there is good enough 
intelligence so that we can help deal with a common problem, and that 
problem is a terrorist organization called PKK. And we need to know, in 
any of these actions, who they are and where they are in order to make 
any strategy effective.
    And therefore, step one is to make sure that our intelligence 
sharing is good. The problem oftentimes is that faulty intelligence 
means that we can't solve the problem. Good, sound intelligence 
delivered on a real-time basis, using modern technology will make it 
much easier to deal effectively with people who are using murder as a 
weapon to achieve political objectives.
    As I said in my opening statement, the PKK is an enemy of Turkey, a 
free Iraq, and the United States of America. And it's in our joint 
interest to work effectively to deal with the problem.
    Caren [Caren Bohan, Reuters].

Democracy in Pakistan

    Q. Mr. President, you've called on President Musharraf to restore 
democracy as quickly as possible. What will be the consequences if he 
doesn't take your advice, and how seriously are you weighing a cut in 
U.S. aid?
    President Bush. Once again, it's a hypothetical question. I 
certainly hope he does take my advice and the advice of the Prime 
Minister of Turkey and the advice of a lot of other figures. And so 
that's--all we can do is continue to work with the President, as well as 
others in the Pak Government, to make it abundantly clear the position 
of the United States. And then obviously, we'll deal with it if 
something other than that happens.
    Q. Do you have any leverage, though?

Situation in Northern Iraq

    Q. Mr. President, do we expect any concrete steps from U.S. against 
PKK in northern Iraq, especially in military way?
    President Bush. Well, the first thing that happened was, as a result 
of the Prime Minister's good leadership, Turkish soldiers were released. 
I know this was very much on his mind. I know that because he has 
constantly talked to my Government about seeing if we can't work 
together to get these people released. And the point I bring up is that 
there is at least one effective measure for people in Turkey to see that 
when we work together, we can accomplish important objectives.
    And so it's--again, I repeat to you, it's fine to speculate about 
what may not--what may or may not happen, but nothing can happen until 
you have good intelligence. We need to know where people are hiding; we 
need to know what they're doing. We believe we can work closely with our 
Turkish allies as well as concerned citizens in Iraq to find that kind 
of intelligence.
    I've assured the Prime Minister that we're working very carefully 
and closely with people in the Kurdish part of Iraq to help deal with 
the movement of these people, to help locate and find and stop the 
leadership of the PKK from continuing doing what they're doing. The 
first step in that direction was the release of the soldiers.
    We understand there's transit issues in airports; we understand that 
there is issues with money. What the Turkish people need to come away 
with from this meeting is that, one, the Prime Minister has impressed 
upon

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me the seriousness of the problem--I understand it--two, he expects 
there to be action, and I agree. And we've taken some steps along those 
lines.
    Thank you very much.
    Q. Mr. President, did you misjudge President Musharraf?

Note: The President spoke at 2:43 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to General David H. Petraeus, USA, 
commanding general, Multi-National Force--Iraq; and President Pervez 
Musharraf of Pakistan. Prime Minister Erdogan spoke in Turkish, and his 
remarks were translated by an interpreter.