BY HUSNU MAHALLI
YENI SAFAK- The Americans turned over power to Ayad Allawi, their hand-picked prime minister, on June 28. But 130,000 American soldiers are still in Iraq, and the number of US undersecretaries and high representatives working at government ministries is 180.
However, it was still called a ‘sovereignty handover.’ But as Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk said, it should have been the nation itself which had the sovereignty. That means the Iraqis.
Now everybody is waiting for the new elections supposed to be held at the beginning of next year. And in advance of this, there will be a census, and a new constitution will be drawn up. Until then, we will see what will happen in Iraq, and in its region at large.
But we see that Iraqis leaders have been accusing neighboring countries lately. According to them, these countries aren’t preventing terrorists from crossing the border into the country. Meaning Syria, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
It is the first three countries which concern us. Turkey has close relationships with both Syria and Iran, and they will grow even closer.
Maybe these good relationships bother the US and its collaborators in Baghdad, but it’s the timing of the accusations that’s important. Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister and a top official at the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (IKDP), wants to distract attention from the Kurds’ ties with Israel by accusing Syria and Iran.