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| The commander of a NATO force said on Wednesday that Turkey was the entire arc of the Islamic world. U.S. admiral James Stavridis, the commander of the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), said that he believed Turkey was an extremely important state geopolitically. "It is a hinge state between Europe and the Levant and South Asia and indeed the entire arc of the Islamic world," Stavridis said during a U.S. House of Representatives session in Washington D.C. Stavridis defined the presence of Turkey in NATO as extremely important, and said he thought was very helpful in maintaining an orientation of Turkey toward and with the West. The admiral said as the only Islamic nation in NATO, Turkey had been extremely helpful in assisting all of the other nations in understanding the cultural mores. Stavridis said Turkey was a big, muscular country, with a strong standing army and a very capable military. "We have learned a great deal and have drawn on their active support," Stavridis said. Stavridis said the Turks today had 1,800 troops in Afghanistan doing exceptionally good work, really across a wide spectrum of missions in the country. The admiral said they were working with Turkey on intelligence and information sharing along their borders, working across that border with Iraq. Stavridis said Ray Odierno, the commanding general of U.S. troops in Iraq, had been very engaged in that issue. Also, Stavridis counted Turkey's Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug as his close friend, an interlocutor who gave him good advice on how they should be approaching and working in the Islamic world. Stavridis said the protocols signed by Turkey and Armenia were awaiting approval by legislative bodies. "I think it would be an extremely important step, there are several of these so-called frozen conflicts in Europe," Stavridis said. Stavridis said a step forward between those two nations, he thought, would also serve as a very good example, as other types of these issues were worked through for example in the Balkans. The admiral said his grandparents were born in Turkey, and they were of Greek descent and emigrated there to the United States. "It's an extremely complex region of the world, and whenever these nations can find common ground and move beyond the disputes and the anger and the warfare of the past, that is an extremely salutary step really for all the Europe but certainly for the nations involved," Stavridis said. Admiral Stavridis is a 1976 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a native of South Florida. From 2002-2004, Admiral Stavridis commanded Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, conducting combat operations in the Arabian Gulf in support of both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. In mid-2009 Admiral Stavridis was appointed as the Supreme Commander Allied Powers Europe. |