What can you tell us about reports of meetings that General Peter Sutton may have had in Ankara and about General Caseys recent visit to northern Iraq?
Ambassador Wilson: I will answer your questions relatively narrowly. Everything I know about the visit of General Casey or the reported visit by General Casey to northern Iraq comes from Turkish media press reports. I can’t deny that it happened. But I have no direct evidence that it happened. As far as General Sutton is concerned, he deals regularly with a wide range of people throughout the Turkish military and defense establishment. That is his job as head of our office of defense cooperation. His primary responsibilities here relate to sales of American defense technology and other kinds of defense cooperation between the United States and Turkey of that sort. I don’t want to get into what he may have been doing in the course of the last number of days. Suffice it to say that we have had, are having, and will continue to have a wide range of conversations with people throughout the Government, the military and other parts of Turkish society to be sure that we understand and report
