ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed hope on Tuesday that Turkey could take economic initiative in Iraq.
Appearing on a private television channel, Erdogan said that the new Iraqi administration was not an administration which came to the power by an election.
Erdogan wished that the new Iraqi administration could fill the authority gap in Iraq and said, ''but, we don't know how successful it will be. We saw what the interim government had done. I hope this new administration will be successful.''
Turkey wanted ground and underground resources to be shared by all the Iraqi people, Erdogan said.
Erdogan noted that creating a law which would allow all the Iraqi people to express their views and beliefs freely in Iraq was very important.
When he was recalled about the news that they did not ''accept the statement of the parliament condemning incidents in Iraq since the statement included the expression 'secularism','' Erdogan said, ''the issue has seriously been deviated. (Republican People's Party) CHP and (Justice and Development Party) our deputies met. They thought of issuing a statement about incidents in Iraq. Iraq has currently formed its interim administrative law. You are assuming totally a different approach towards these people who have formed their interim administrative law. You don't have any determinative position there.''
Erdogan added, ''you may be respected if you support them within their framework since you don't have any determinative position. We have discussed what kind of an initiative we can take from the outset. We might have taken an economic initiative but, we have not such political or administrative participation. I hope we can take such initiatives from now on.''
(BRC) 01.06.2004