If anyone is looking for clues about the current state of Turkish-American relations, the Feb. 10 issue of the Milliyet daily presents an opportunity. The importance of those relations is not limited to the bilateral level; they carry significance for the whole Middle East region and even for the international system in general. The fact that Turkey was the first country to which Barack Hussein Obama paid a bilateral visit as U.S. president in 2009 speaks for itself.

Milliyet became the first Turkish media outlet to get an interview from Obama following his re-election, and splashed it Sunday on its front page. What a U.S. president says and does not say is equally important. Obama’s comments on Iran and Syria contain points and nuances that are of significance for the global political agenda.

Since Milliyet provided details of how the interview was conducted, we know that the U.S. president did not answer certain questions and we know what they were. The interview was not conducted face-to-face but in a written Q&A form. This is how Milliyet explained the format: “We had the following agreement with the White House on the interview: Obama was to answer five to 10 questions out of a total of 10 questions we would pose. That is, he reserved a right to not answer all questions. Following the bomb attack at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, we added another question, and eventually received answers to only seven out of 11 questions. The questions Obama chose not to answer reveal as much as the replies he gave to the rest.”

The questions the U.S. president “chose not to answer” identify the areas where Turkish-American ties are under strain, or the issues on which the two sides clearly diverge, in what Obama has explained as, “No two countries agree on everything. And Turkey and the United States are not an exception.” Here are the unanswered questions: