BY YILMAZ OZTUNA
TURKIYE- Columnist Yilmaz Oztuna comments on how Turkey will decide whether or not to send soldiers to Iraq. A summary of his column is as follows:
Ankara can’t completely make up for the advantage it lost back in March when it rejected the deployment of US soldiers in Turkey. Now we’re trying to correct this error, but we’ve as yet been unable to. Even if we can, we can compensate this national loss only partially. With these kinds of national mistakes, one should get up immediately from wherever one fell. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul are trying to do this. However, we handed over our strategic ally to two tribes in northern Iraq, like a gift. Ankara is trying to correct this, but conditions have changed so much since that day and the tribes have grabbed at this historic opportunity. Politics is the art of seizing and benefiting from opportunities. Those who miss opportunities later run into trouble.
The disarmament and dispersal of PKK/KADEK terrorists in northern Iraq won’t be as easy as it would have been six months ago. The US doesn’t want to conduct operations in the mountains anymore. It’s also afraid of delivering this duty to Turkish soldiers and thus offending the Kurds. However, Ankara and Washington will soon reach a consensus.
If one doesn’t feel and see the depth of one’s mistake, this mistake can’t be fixed. Only the government is being faced with this tough spot. However, a great many institutions, organizations and people are responsible for it as well. As the US sees this, it has approached the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in an understanding way. More generally, it’s both difficult and dangerous to undertake a project in the region without Turks. Next week the chief of General Staff will brief the government on the issue. This is a political issue broadly based on the military.