Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul met his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani today, in an attempt to smooth tensions after the Turkish military launched an assault on Kurdish PKK rebels in northern Iraq toward the end of February. The Turkish offensive had put the US in an awkward position, as it potentially pitted Turkey, a critical NATO ally that receives US intelligence, against Iraqi troops it has spent billions of dollars training. The Iraq War has strained relations between the US and Turkey, a secular state with a deeply religious Muslim majority, which is vying for European Union membership. In light of the recent strain, the Atlantic Council has called for a renewal in US-Turkey relations in a series of papers, which emphasize cooperation in Energy Security, counter-terrorism and building stability in the broader Middle East.
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