AK Party Deputy Chairman of External Affairs and Spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Turkish Parliament, Suat KINIKLIOGLU was hosted by “Acik Gorus”  program on April 8, 2009 broadcasted on Channel 24, in which the visit of Barack Obama was discussed.

KINIKLIOGLU evaluated the visit of Obama and primarily touched upon the background  saying  that   “In the last two years, we, as the AK Party Chairmanship of External Affairs and  Government had contacts with both the Obama and McCain teams and during the meetings emphasized the importance of an immediate  visit by the new President to Turkey to meet our President of Republic and Prime Minister for the termination of the traumatic period of eight years and such a visit to be a part of the European tour. We were pleased that our efforts bear positive results”.

KINIKLIOGLU referred to the strategic importance of Turkey for the United States and added that Turkey was no more the satellite country of the Cold War era but reached to the position of a country that could project power in the region, manage the events in the vicinity, improve the political dialogue, deepen economic relations and have significant level of bilateral relations in the immediate area in cultural, political and economic dimensions. KINIKLIOGLU also drew attention to the bottlenecks in the foreign policy menu of Obama existing in the vicinity of Turkey and said that “whatever subject exists in US foreign policy, it definitely involves Turkey”.