BY TURGUT TARHANLI
RADIKAL- Right now Turkey’s top foreign policy issues are Cyprus, Iraq and Europe. Under the US occupation, Iraq is still trying to form a new administration. Its Governing Council seems the leading actor in this process. However, the domineering background role of the occupying powers cannot be discounted. Under such circumstances, the northern Iraqi Kurdish groups’ recent declaration that they wish to establish a federal Iraq is a matter of freedom of expression. In general, all the Iraqi people should express their opinion on this issue in line with their right of self-determination.
The real questions are how this discussion has arisen and under which circumstances it is still being discussed. The answer is always the same: the US occupation. Without Washington’s intervention, the Iraqi people’s right of self-determination wouldn’t be the subject of feverish discussions by the international community. Unfortunately the occupation itself has overshadowed a number of critical issues in Iraq. What are these issues? First of all, the Iraqi people have been forced to determine their own future under inappropriate conditions created by military force. Can we really consider the recent developments to be a nation’s efforts at its self-determination? Should we hail these efforts even if they came about due to the pressure of a foreign occupier?
A state may decide to change its structure. The former Czechoslovakia is an example of this, as is the reunification of western and eastern Germany. However, in the former Yugoslavia, the case was quite different. First problems in Bosnia-Herzegovina and later in Kosovo led to foreign intervention and bloody struggles. However, none of these conflicts erupted due to a foreign occupation. On the contrary, it was the conflict itself which necessitated foreign intervention. We can find many similar examples from the ‘90s. In addition, in these cases, the methods used to end the conflicts were different from those we currently see in Iraq. Before moving to new discussions on Iraq, we shouldn’t forget that no matter how we discuss these issues we will be discussing them under the US occupation!
I believe that reconsidering the US occupation will serve to show us the similarities and differences between the Iraq, Cyprus and Europe issues and other similar cases.