The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

M A R C H 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 33 • Vice President Richard Che- ney, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace (later Admiral Michael Mullin), National Security Advisor StephenHadley, and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen- eral James Jones (later Bantz Crad- dock) played key roles, as well. Common Cause: We also identi- fied and pursued areas where we could cooperate. For- eignMinister Gül and Ambassador Khalilzad teamed up in December 2005 to cajole a public commitment fromSunni leaders (including Tariq al-Hashemi, later an Iraqi vice president) to abandon their boycott and join Iraqi politics. We consulted on further efforts in 2006 and 2007 to draw other disaffected Sunni groups into the political process. In support of Sec. Rice’s interest in broadening our regional engagement on Iraq, Gül strongly backed efforts to stand up an Expanded Neighbors of Iraq forum in 2007—help- ing to secure, among other things, the participation of Syria and Iran. Turkey hosted the second Expanded Neighbors ministerial in November 2007. Addressing the PKK Issue: These necessary steps only marginally im- proved the atmosphere with Turkey, however, for the PKK problem re- mained a chronic and growing ache. We tried several initiatives. A 2004-2005 effort to conduct trilateral diplomacy with Turkey and Iraq on the PKKwasn’t taken seriously in Bagh- dad, and its lack of results disillusioned Ankara. State De- partment Deputy Coordinator for CounterterrorismFrank Urbancic led an effort to engage authorities in Europe on the PKK terrorist and criminal networks there that funded its operations in northern Iraq and elsewhere. Though the Turks initially viewed this as window dress- ing, the results achieved in several European capitals eventually convinced them the effort had merit. Sec. Rice named retired U.S. Army General Joseph Ralston as F O C U S The most intractable component of our Iraq problems with Turkey during this period was the PKK.