U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to visit Turkey at the end of his European trip scheduled for next month reflects the moderate Muslim nation's central place in his emerging diplomatic approach to the Islamic world, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Obama's stop in Turkey, announced on Saturday in Ankara by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, partly fulfils the president's pledge to engage the Muslim world in a substantive way within his first 100 days in office.
Obama is not expected to use the Turkey visit to deliver his anticipated address on Islam, a speech he promised during his campaign to give in a Muslim capital soon after taking office.
Turkey's place on his itinerary gives the Obama administration more time on the Muslim speech as Obama begins new diplomatic efforts with Syria and Iran, regional Muslim powers isolated for years by the former George W. Bush administration.
What is more, the Washington Post said, Obama's visit to Turkey will extend his administration's public-relations campaign toward Islamic nations that began when Obama gave his first television interview as president to an Arabic satellite channel, a signal, administration officials said, of a new approach toward a population dismayed by U.S. policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories.
As a non-Arab Muslim nation, Turkey is well-placed to serve as a key administration ally on those issues. "Turkey is one of those countries that shows that there doesn't have to be a clash of civilizations," Marc Grossman, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and vice chairman of the Cohen Group, a Washington-based consulting firm, was quoted as saying.
Turkey, a NATO member, has been for years one of major U.S. allies in the Middle East.