BY CUNEYT ULSEVER
HURRIYET- I think it's very important that President Abdullah Gul paid his first domestic visit to the southeast, after he was elected the president. Some people might say that other politicians have also paid similar visits and made similar promises there, but those promises were all forgotten then.
This time I'm hopeful, because the chaos in the Middle East, the fact that the US started to withdraw from Iraq gradually and possible attacks by the US against Iran might cause a worse situation for Turkey. In such a period, it's a must for Gul to embrace the southeast. As I wrote before, Turkey is making good calculations about the role that it would play concerning the US' policies on Iraq and Iran in the future. But, even if a conference which would bring countries neighboring Iraq together in Istanbul, a Turkey which couldn't clean its own home can be taken seriously neither in the Middle East, nor in the entire world. If Turkey wants to protect itself from gradually-increasing problems in the Middle East and even take lessons from those developments, firstly, it has to solve its own Kurdish issue.
If we don't take place next to our Kurdish citizens, efforts for getting things mixed in this region would increase more. On the contrary, an administration which can please the people living in the southeast will be very advantageous in terms of getting prepared for playing the role of a protector. A Turkey which can consider northern Iraq not as a threat, but as an opportunity, can show its sincerity on this issue only by winning the people living in the southeast. We're now facing the probability of an Iraq which was politically divided into three parts. If Turkey wants to protect its own peace and have a say concerning the Middle East issue, it has to protect the Kurdish people living on northern Iraq in such an atmosphere where Iran would direct Shiites and Saudi Arabia and Egypt would direct Sunnis. Kurds are always considering the possibility that both Shiites and Sunnis living in Iraq will turn northern Iraq into a common target of attack, after the US starts to withdraw from the region. Thus, Kurds are already willing to be protected by Turkey. The most realistic method of dissolving the PKK is the mutual share of confidence.
If Gul could protect the southeast with sincere and realist policies, the Democratic Society Party (DTP) worked and made cooperation at Parliament for democracy and peace and Turkey invited the Iraqi president to announce its conditions and the guarantee of protection, Turkey would be taken all the measures and got prepared for playing an active role in the Middle East. The entire world has to take such a country seriously. This determination would relax the US as well and create a new rapprochement between these two allies. I hope Gul's visit to the southeast is the part of a great strategy!