Trump willing to take fresh look at Mideast

Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will listen more to Middle East countries like Turkey than either the outgoing Obama administration or the person he defeated in the election, Hillary Clinton, according to the chair of the Turkey-US Business Council, Ekin Alptekin.

"Trump is looking at things more pragmatically and he is willing to listen to his strategic partners in the region," he said.

You are known to favor Donald Trump as a better candidate for Turkish-US ties; tell us why.

I promoted him in the Turkish-American community because I believed that he would be the candidate who would be the most effective in deepening and strengthening bilateral ties. 

The Turkish-American relationship is mostly based on political and military cooperation. In recent years, we feel the dynamic of the political dimension has gone down a little bit. We recently suffered some serious disagreements on what the right course of action is. 

First and foremost, on Syria, we have been arguing for certain actions that [the Barack] Obama administration did not want to take, like the no-fly zone, for instance.

As a Turkish citizen, I feel that the Obama administration has not done enough to try and understand our position and not been sensitive enough to some of our concerns. 

My concern with Hillary Clinton was that she might have continued the same policies. 

But this is not enough to say that Trump will be better for Turkish-U.S. ties.

It is not just that we were in disagreement with some Obama policies like Syria or its inability to understand quickly enough the July 15 [coup attempt] and their lack of urgency in dealing with the Fetullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ)...