BY SEMIH IDIZ
MILLIYET- The meeting between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh shows that new developments are coming in the region. The meeting set to be held in Baghdad this Saturday between the US secretary of state and her Iranian and Syrian counterparts is another sign of this. This meeting between Iran and Saudi Arabia also relaxed those people worried about a serious Sunni-Shiite conflict, because these two key countries of the region are for the first time pushing a constructive initiative to calm the atmosphere. Of course, Turkey isn't outside this activity, in which efforts are being made to build new bridges. As part of this, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul will take part in the meeting in Baghdad . However, it's debatable whether we're at the center of this activity, because it's still a problem for Turkey to produce policies according to new regional realities, just like as we did with the Iraqi Kurds. In this situation, we're painting ourselves not as an active player which opens the way, but as a reactive regional power which is trying to hold back truths that we don't like. Thanks to journalist Sedat Ergin, we now know more about the role played by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in the Iraq crisis and here is a clear example of this: Sezer ignores the Kurdish leaders -- one of whom is the president and the others, the region's governors -- in accordance with the country's Constitution, and the military wing has embraced this situation.
Last week I learned from the official Iranian news agency IRNA about the message sent from Ahmadinejad to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is now undergoing medical treatment in Jordan . The news stated that Ahmadinejad praised Talabani, whom some say will intimidate Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds. He not only wished him good health, but also praised him for his `struggle for democracy and freedom in Iraq .' Obviously, these warm words are the result of Talabani's visit to Tehran . Likewise, Talabani made it felt that he liked this message the most. Meanwhile, as if highlighting the conflict in Turkey , he said that he also received a get-well soon message from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Clearly Erdogan is trying to dispel the negative atmosphere caused by the absence of any such message from the Cankaya Presidential Palace. Perhaps he was successful, because nobody in the region knows Sezer, but everybody knows Erdogan. However, this isn't important. What is important is that we stay outside the equation in terms of developments occurring next to us and that such countries as Saudi Arabia and Iran snatch our role with more flexible approaches. As always, we're trying to shape our world not with objective realities but with subjective perceptions, and meanwhile the world is making us sit in the back seat. This situation cannot change without a serious change of mentality.