The study recommended active American support for Ankara’s bid for EU membership.

WASHINGTON — A strategy study by an American think tank has recommended repairing and redefining relations with Turkey to help promote America's ties with the Muslim world.

"The growing schism between the West and the Muslim world is one of the primary challenges confronting American foreign policy and defense policymakers," reads the overview of the study conducted by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and posted on its website.

"As a consequence, the relationship between the United States and Turkey -- a Western-oriented, democratizing Muslim country -- is strategically more important than ever."

The study, to be released on Wednesday, June 21, is the work of CFR fellows Steven A. Cook and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.

CFR is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the understanding of US foreign policy and international affairs through the free and civil exchange of ideas.

US-Turkish ties took a nosedive after the secular but largely Muslim country refused to allow US troops use of its territory to open a northern front in the US-led invasion of Iraq.

A recent global poll by the Pew Research Center indicated that the presence of US forces in the oil-rich Arab country weigh heavily on the US image in the Muslim world as well as in Europe and Japan.

It showed that only 12 percent of Turks have a favorable view of the United States, down from 23 percent last year.

US President George W. Bush has appointed a special envoy, Karen Hughes, to improve the US image in the Muslim world.

However, during her trips Hughes came face to face with Muslim anger over the Iraq invasion and bias towards Israel.

Anchored in West

Cook, has published widely in leading foreign policy journals, newspapers, and opinion magazines, said both Washington and Ankara should work together to chart a new course for their future ties.

"There are a lot of important and key issues that need to be addressed by both countries," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP)

"They need to put the relationship on a solid foundation for the future."

Cook, a frequent commentator in the local, national, and international press, said the US should work together with its European allies to ensure that Turkey remains anchored in the West through membership in the 25-member euro bloc.

"Our concern is a Turkey unmoored in the international system," he said.

"That's not to say that if Turkey does not join the EU it would become an Islamist nation.

"But it could then seek partners such as Russia and China and from the American perspective, it is important to keep Turkey in the West."

The EU and Turkey officially kick-started on Monday, June 12, the long-awaited accession talks, the most important cornerstone of membership process, after EU foreign ministers overcame last-minute objections from Cyprus.

Turkey has been trying to join the European club since the 1960s.

Strategic

The study also puts forward a set of other recommendations to repair the US-Turkish alliance relationship.

It should Washington should work to create a US-Turkey Cooperation Commission that would meet on a biannual basis to provide a structured forum for government agencies, NGOs, and private sector leaders from both countries to discuss matters of mutual concern.

The report came ahead of a planned visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to Washington on July 5.

He will hold talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and finalize the Strategic Vision document that both agreed on in principle during a visit to Ankara by Rice in April.

The study also recommended a regular trilateral dialogue involving the US, Turkey and Iraqi Kurds.

Ankara wants the US to take a tougher stand Kurdish independence aspirations and the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted a terrorist group by both sides.

The group waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey between 1984 and 1999. The conflict has claimed some 37,000 lives.

"The problem is that on the issue that divides us the most -- (Iraq) --, Turkey wants things from the US that at present the US is in no position to deliver," Cook said.

"We're at loggerheads of sorts, where each government recognizes the challenges that each faces but they can't move beyond that."