QUOTE OF THE DAY
President Bush and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan Discuss Global War on Terror
The Oval Office
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 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.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
President George W. Bush (R) before awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to American novelist Harper Lee (L) in the East Room of the White House, November 5, 2007.