BY NURAY BASARAN
AKSAM- The world is now trying to read between the lines of US President George W. Bush’s address to the US Army War College on Monday. In the wake of Bush’s speech and the draft UN resolution on Iraq submitted by Washington and Britain, the international community has entered a critical phase which may culminate with next month’s NATO summit in Istanbul.
The runup to the summit is seeing such significant gatherings as the NATO Chiefs of General Staff meeting, the Mediterranean dialogue meetings and technical meetings of high-level US diplomats, with more in the pipeline. In his speech, President Bush laid out the main points of his Iraq policy. In addition, the draft text presented to the UN Security Council proposes a gradual transfer of sovereignty to the new interim government and also seeks support to extend the mission of foreign troops serving there with the participation of the international community. The US and the EU are expected to hold meetings in June so as to smooth out their differences and discuss a number of critical issues, such as the role of NATO in the democratization of Afghanistan and Iraq as well as expanding NATO’s mission in the region of the US’ Greater Middle East Initiative. Moreover, next month’s G-8 summit in the US will try to draw up a budget for NATO’s new missions in general and the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. In other words, the world leaders will begin to prepare an outline in their June meetings for the ‘Istanbul Initiative’ document to be released by NATO on June 29.
An important question springs to mind: What will change the day after the NATO summit? I suppose the international force in Afghanistan will be reshaped in an attempt to establish stability there for its fall general elections. The Iraqi people will try to predict what the future will bring under the new interim government. The countries of the region will begin to discuss the Greater Middle East Initiative and its implications for them.
But what kind of a period will begin for Turkey the day after the NATO summit? I think the answer to this question will come at the two-day meeting beginning today at the War Academies Command.