On the first part of his 10-day tour of the region, President Clinton today visits the quake-ravaged Izmit region of Turkey, where he’s expected to talk to survivors and offer more U.S. assistance.
Clinton arrived yesterday at Ankara’s Esenboga airport shortly before midnight.
The country is struggling with its second major earthquake in just three months.
“This second earthquake was much more severe than we had originally thought,” Clinton told reporters aboard Air Force One. “It will be very much on the minds of the Turkish leaders and the Turkish people, and we’ll try to be sensitive to that.”
Clinton will spend five days in Turkey, where, in Istanbul, he’ll attend the summit of leaders of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
He’ll also travel to Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, and make a pre-Thanksgiving visit to American troops in Kosovo.
The trip had to be changed for fear that anti-American protests in Greece could be dangerous and embarrassing. The visit to Greece was postponed nearly a week until next Friday, and Clinton’s schedule there has been changed for security reasons.
The president will attend several state dinners and visit Florence, Italy, where he’ll meet with the leaders of Brazil, Germany, France, Italy and Britain.
While in Istanbul, Clinton is expected to meet with Russian President Boris Yeltsin at a summit in which the ongoing war in Chechnya is certain to emerge as a central topic.
On the last day before his Nov. 23 return, Clinton will meet with Albanian rebel leaders and U.S. soldiers in Macedonia.
While in Turkey, Clinton is expected to witness the massive recovery effort in the wake of Friday’s jolt.
Last night, power generators fired up across Turkey’s northwestern earthquake zone for the third night, to provide light for rescue workers battling time and weather to find survivors.
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said 349 people had been killed in the quake, a downward revision from a toll of 374 reported earlier by the Health Ministry. At last count, 2,386 were reported injured.