BY FIKRET BILA
MILLIYET- Columnist Fikret Bila comments on the Iraq and Cyprus issues. A summary of his column is as follows:
The current situation shows that from now on, it will be impossible for Ankara to follow a policy supported by military force in Iraq. It should be accepted that Iraqi Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani are the ones who benefited the most from the US invasion of Iraq and scored the greatest political success. Hoshyar Zebari, one of Barzani’s underlings, became Iraqi foreign minister and Talabani will visit Ankara as head of the Iraqi Governing Council, both of which vividly demonstrate their achievement. Moreover, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said that the US was doing the most to protect the Kurds, their ally. It would be unrealistic to believe that in the coming days Turkey will have a place in influencing and directing Iraq’s reconstruction in line with our national interests. Turkey can’t do more than protect and defend its own political and geographical integrity.
This situation could change only with a clear-cut US failure and the breakout of an Iraqi civil war, but Ankara wants neither of these. Obviously such chaos would only hurt us. The current conditions and results can’t be considered a success for Ankara. Nor is the situation on Cyprus any different. After accepting the political condition of the need for a Cyprus resolution, it would be difficult for us to influence or direct our European Union membership bid. The Iraq issue was left up to the US-Kurdish alliance, and the Cyprus issue was left up to the EU. Solving the Cyprus problem is no guarantee of EU membership or even getting a date for membership negotiations. After this phase, the EU might stipulate new political conditions. European leaders’ praise and warm messages about Turkey today might end up being new conditions. Ankara has so far been unable to receive a guarantee from the EU, so it can do nothing but continue to wait.