Thumbs Up for Obama's Turk Visit (TURKEY)

More than half of all Turks have a positive opinion of Barack Obama, marking a stark contrast to their perceptions of his predecessor, George W. Bush, an recent opinion poll has revealed.

Indeed, Obama, who took over the post from Bush on Jan. 20, tops the list of foreign leaders with a healthy approval rating, according to İstanbul-based İnfakto Research Workshop's poll conducted in mid-February, before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Ankara earlier this month, when she announced that Obama will pay one of his first foreign visits in office to Turkey in April. According to the poll's results, 51.6 percent of Turks have a positive opinion of Obama. Popularity rates of the United States or Americans are lower when compared to Obama himself: 25.5 percent of Turks say they have a positive opinion of the United States -- up from 22.9 percent in 2005 -- and 40.8 percent say they view Americans positively, representing a slight improvement from 37.5 percent in 2005.

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