Released: December 3, 2009

Negative Views of U.S. Unchanged in Turkey

The U.S. continues to face serious image challenges in Turkey. While overall ratings for the U.S. have improved throughout much of the world, in Turkey they remain dismal – only 14% of Turks expressed a positive view of the U.S. in the spring 2009 Pew Global Attitudes survey, the lowest rating among the 25 nations included in the poll.

Still, there are modest signs of a potential for improvement. While just one-third of Turks have confidence that President Obama will do the right thing in world affairs, this is a significant increase from 2008, when only 2% voiced confidence in then-President Bush. And while most Turks continue to oppose U.S.-led anti-terrorism efforts and most still believe the U.S. could be a military threat to their country some day, these views are less common than they were in the waning years of the Bush Administration.

Read complete commentary at pewresearch.org