Harmony

BY FIKRET BILA
MILLIYET- Columnist Fikret Bila comments on the need to establish harmony among the government, president and Office of General Staff. A summary of his column is as follows:
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has just returned from the United States. He is expected to share impressions of his Washington visit with the president, government and the General Staff’s Office.
In the wake of the recent tensions between Ankara and Washington, our government needs to develop a new Iraq policy. However, its priority task should be to establish domestic harmony. Ankara failed at this concerning the Iraq war, since first it approved measures to upgrade ports and bases, meant as a prelude to US troop deployments, but then refused the deployments themselves.
While state authorities made conflicting decisions on the US demands, there was no harmony among Cankaya, the government and the General Staff’s Office. Since our government failed to develop a steady policy, we’ve recently run into significant problems in our relations with Washington.
Ankara should stabilize its inconsistent policy regarding the US and northern Iraq. The government should develop its policies together with Cankaya and the chief of General Staff before submitting any bills to Parliament. If it does this, no matter how Parliament decides, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government will be able to avoid incurring more of the harsh criticism it’s recently been subject to.
The first step Turkey should take is to establish harmony between the state authorities. During the decision-making expected to follow Gul’s return, state authorities should act harmoniously while taking care not to let their debates or controversies be leaked to foreign circles. As a matter of fact, the foreign media has recently extensively covered relations between our civilian and military authorities as if serious problems existed between them. This mistaken impression should also be immediately changed by establishing inner harmony.