BY CUNEYT ULSEVER
HURRIYET- The international media seems to be in agreement that the recent air operation (against terrorists in northern Iraq) is Turkey's biggest in years. In addition, nobody is denying that the operation was in self-defense, but opinions about what it accomplished differ. First, it should be mentioned that Chief of General Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit said just afterwards that the US had opened Iraqi airspace to Turkey and that this meant that the operation was approved by Washington. Most of the public thinks that the intelligence for the operation came from the US. But according to Reuters, an official at the US Embassy in Baghdad said that they only got prior notification of the operation and that it was out of the question for them to greenlight any decision. The US didn't give a military response to the air operation, and even if it didn't approve of it, obviously, it didn't object either. But US officials were impolite to rebuff Buyukanit this way.
Western sources say that civilian villages were bombed, houses and schools were destroyed, and animals died, but terrorist PKK camps suffered little damage. They say up to seven people died. If villages where civilians lived were really bombed, would the death toll be this low?
I want to stress that Turkey is responsible for telling the world about this operation, along with its results. Naturally, Kurds and PKK elements in particular are criticizing it, claiming that it did great harm to civilians. Photos of the ruins of villages said to have been damaged by the airstrikes are being supplied to the Western media. Turkey should have widely distributed satellite photos with the names of the PKK camps which were bombed and details of the damage. The results of this operation should be determined immediately, so that terrorists will worry about their own future and PKK power and be discouraged. Late answers lose much of their effect on morale.
My greatest pleasure in this operation is that Turkey was able to show the entire world that it's the greatest power in the Middle East. Thus should be a warning not only to the PKK, but to all nations about Turkey's superiority in terms of both technology and the human capital employing it. Thus the results of the operation could be immediately announced to the world in a persuasive way. Otherwise, according to the impression I got from the Western media, a psychological war has started about to undermine this operation. How many PKK camps were damaged and to what extent? This is the question!