Turkey's foreign minister discussed resolution on the incidents of 1915 and relations with Israel with leading U.S. congressmen on Tuesday.
Ahmet Davutoglu met Jeanne Shaheen, the head of the U.S. Senate Sub-committee on European Affairs; John Kerry, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; Steny Hoyer, the U.S. House of Representatives majority leader; Richard Lugar, a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; Howard Berman, the chairman of U.S. House Committee on Foreign Relations; in Washington D.C.
Diplomatic sources said Davutoglu debated some main Turkish foreign policy topics with the U.S. congressmen, including Turkish-Israeli relations.
Davutoglu reiterated Turkey's expectation that Israel should apologize and pay compensation for its attack on Mavi Marmara aid ship that killed nine Turks.
The Turkish minister said the Israeli attack was a breach of international law, and said Turkey cooperated with the United Nations (UN) investigation commission dealing with the issue.
According to diplomats, Davutoglu aimed to brief congressmen on Turkey's perspective on several issues, and tried to learn the views of members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
During his meeting with members of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Relations, Davutoglu discussed the resolution on incidents of 1915, which the committee adopted last March.
Davutoglu said the resolution might harm Turkish-U.S. relations and recalled Turkey's initiatives aiming to enlighten the incidents.
On Monday, Davutoglu had a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Adviser Ton Donilon and European Commissioner for enlargement Stefan Fule.
According to sources, Davutoglu and Clinton discussed documents posted on Wikileaks web-site, Iran, situation in Lebanon, fight against terrorism, NATO's Lisbon summit and Cyprus.
Clinton thanked Turkey for its previous efforts regarding Iran, while Davutoglu said Turkey cared about the meeting of the "P5+1" (five permanent members of the UN Security Council including the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) countries, not about the venue of the meeting.
Davutoglu reiterated Turkey's expectations from Israel after the attack on Mavi Marmara aid ship, and expressed Turkey's wish that the United States should urge Israel to correct its mistake.
During the meeting, the United States reaffirmed its support to fight against terrorism.
Davutoglu left the United States early on Wednesday and proceeded to Kazakh capital of Astana to attend the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) heads of state and government summit.
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