!à‡`="justify">With his latest victory in Oregon on Tuesday, it became clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic Party's nominee for president of the United States to run against Republican John McCain.

er the war in Iraq, unless there is a dramatic change before November 2008, it is very likely that Obama will be the next president of the US.

Obama's presidency would influence Turkey's relations with the US for a number of reasons. The first thing Turkey has to deal with is the Armenian genocide issue. Obama has already declared that he would recognize the events of 1915 as genocide if he becomes president. McCain on the other hand thinks that it is not in the best interests of the US to confront Turkey based on an event that occurred close to a hundred years ago. McCain's position on the Armenian issue naturally gained some sympathy from Turkish people, including politicians and diplomats. However, for a number of reasons, Obama's basic foreign policy position would be more beneficial to Turkey's interests than that of McCain.

Obama outlined his foreign policy initiative as a dialogue not just with the US's allies but with its foes as well. He very straight forwardly suggested that the US engage in dialogue with Iran and Syria. His position on the foreign policy of the US is clear -- change. Obama states that he will carefully withdraw the US troops from Iraq as soon as possible.  

Obama's foreign policy position would help Turkey on three fronts. First, Obama's basic premise of finding a solution to international problems through dialogue overlaps a great deal with Turkey's current foreign policy initiative of a multi-dimensional approach to find ways to solve its international problems through dialogue. Despite the Bush administration's open criticism of Turkey's efforts to maintain friendly relations with Iran and Syria, the Turkish government's new foreign policy initiative would become an opportunity to strengthen its strategic relations with the US during Obama's presidency. In fact, Turkey would play an intermediary role between the US and Iran to prepare basic necessities between the two countries. Even if Turkey did not play such an intermediary role between Iran and the US at least the US would not criticize Turkey for the initiative to develop dialogue between its neighbors. 

Second, Obama's decision to withdraw the US troops from Iraq would eventually benefit Turkey in its relation with northern Iraq. Iraqi Kurds now realize that they will need Turkey after US troop withdrawal. If Turkey manages to present the similarities between its foreign policy initiative and that of the US this would lead to more cooperation between the US and Turkey on the issue of fighting terrorism and sharing similar views on the issue of the Kurdish question. Obama's foreign policy perspective would provide the basics for dialogue between Kurds in northern Iraq and Turkey. This eventually would lead to finding a permanent solution for the problem.

Obama's position on the Armenian genocide issue seems to be a problematic one for Turkey. However, if Turkey were able to demonstrate its openness to solving this issue through dialogue -- i.e., establishing a commission for independent historians to investigate the issue objectively by examining international archives, including Ottoman, Russian, British and Dashnak archives in Boston -- Obama would put pressure on the Armenian side to accept Turkey's offer as the first step of establishing dialogue between the two sides. Thus, what Turkey should do is to choose a way to demonstrate its openness to dialogue if the Armenian side accepts Turkey's offer to establish the commission of historians. On this matter, Professor Yusuf Halaço?lu's recent statement of suggesting $20 million of financial help to open the Dashnak archive in Boston would be clear evidence of the Turkish authorities' openness to dialogue on this subject.