Turkey time.

Obama's speech to the Turkish parliament was a real piece of diplomacy. He spoke at length on many topics - shared goals, shared history (of atrocities), shared values. He discussed the country's potential to be a bridge between Europe (and the US) and the Muslim World. While it faces hurdles - welcoming the Kurds into the governing structure, pushing out hard line military figures and extremist nationalists, confronting the role Turks had in orchestrating and carrying out the Armenian genocide - Turkey seems on a path to being an industrialized state with economic opportunity, civil society institutions, civil and political liberties and a majority Muslim population.

Here is a video of the speech and here is the transcript.

By extending a hand to the Muslim World, Obama continues to isolate extremists, making it difficult for them to rally moderates under the banner of anti Americanism.

"America's relationship with the Muslim world cannot and will not be based on opposition to al-Qaeda"

"Our partnership with the Muslim world is critical in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject," Obama told the assembly. " . . . The future must belong to those who create, not those who destroy. That is the future we must work for, and we must work for it together."

Article in the Wash Post on Obama's visit.
Article in Independent by Robert Fisk on whether Obama will fulfill campaign pledge and push Turks to recognize the Armenian genocide.
Article in Financial Times.
Juan Cole analyzes diffeent sections of the speech.
Report by Steven Cook of Council Foreign Relations, "The Evolving Role of Turkey in Mideast Peace Diplomacy."
Brookings Turkey reports/ articles archive.
Oped by Roger Cohen in NYTimes on a conversation he had with PM Erdogan.
I like this section from Cohen's article:
I asked Erdogan if Islam and modernity were compatible. “Islam is a religion,” he said, “It is not an ideology. For a Muslim, there is no such thing as to be against modernity. Why should a Muslim not be a modern person? I, as a Muslim, fulfill all the requirements of my religion and I live in a democratic, social state. Can there be difficulties? Yes. But they will be resolved at the end of a maturity period so long as there is mutual trust.”

The problem is, of course, that Islam has been deployed as an ideology in the anti-modern, murderous, death-to-the-West campaign of Al-Qaeda. But Erdogan is right: Islam is one of the great world religions. Obama’s steps to reassert that truth, and so bridge the most dangerous division in the world, are of fundamental strategic importance.

Synthesis begins with understanding, which is precisely what never interested his predecessor."