BY ISMAIL KUCUKKAYA
AKSAM- Some say that in the age of `Super Terrorism,' the Turkish Armed Forces is taking the initiative to take the fight against global terrorism to the international arena. In an era when there's a tendency worldwide to identify terrorism with Islam, Ankara this week hosted the second Symposium on Global Terrorism and International Cooperation with very high-level international participation. The symposium is gradually becoming a regular event. Besides the chiefs of general staff of five countries, many respected academics, journalists and military officials also took part in the symposium, which started yesterday.
Global terrorism is a fact of the modern world. How best to fight it is not yet clear. As Chief of General Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit said yesterday, we're talking about something imprecise, because there's even not a definition of terrorism which is accepted worldwide. Similarly, Turkey has been unable to get its own definition of terrorism accepted internationally, even though the terrorist PKK is very real. As a result, cooperation with Turkey has fallen short, and it continues to be stabbed in the back by, for example, some countries allowing Roj-TV to broadcast terrorist group propaganda in the heart of Europe, or the release of Fehriye Erdal from the European Union's capital. Now the military is looking for a way to make this cooperation, which has never emerged among civilians, a reality. After all, they speak each other's language.
But it's wrong to see this initiative only along military lines. Among the participants, there were many representatives from the world of academia. We saw at the symposium that mutual understanding is developing slowly, amid rising military interest in the issue. Moreover, we're seeing that the military has started to consider fighting terrorism from a broader perspective. When I talked to former Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok yesterday, he said that people are still confused, but the situation is improving. Ozkok added that the first meeting was held during his tenure and the current meeting was also going well and that Gen. Buyukanit's speech was also very successful.
In Buyukanit's speech, the emphasis on Pakistan was both important and interesting. Buyukanit urged international support for the Pakistani administration, warning that if this support is absent, a terrorist group may obtain nuclear weapons for the first time. On the balancing role of nation-states in anti-terror efforts, Buyukanit said that nation-states should think about terrorism internationally and act regionally.
It's very important that these calls come from Turkey. The Ankara-based Centre of Excellence Defense Against Terrorism, which organized the symposium, has an important role. I'm talking about an institution which works with experts from many countries, who examine the issue academically and teach courses. As usual, the event was successful and messages reached their destinations. Consequently, the TSK leadership again showed that it's interested in not only the military dimension of the problem, but also in its diplomatic dimension. During a coffee break, Buyukanit again rebuffed criticisms of Turkey's recent land operation into northern Iraq. He said that they can't enjoy their success in the operation. These words should be highlighted. He's right. This debate should end. A commander I talked to yesterday said that when US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Ankara last week, most of Turkey's units had already withdrawn from Iraq. He also said, wouldn't it have been a shame to have sent them back after Gates spoke?