Fine Tuning By The U.S.

By Semih Idiz
MILLIYET- It can be seen that the US is following the EU, which has initially evaluated the closure case against the Justice and Development Party (AKP) only in terms of democracy and then started to discuss the importance of secularism in Turkey. US Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Daniel Fried`s statements about the closure case against the AKP at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last week is the final example of this. As remembered, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also said at the annual meeting of the Turkish-American Council in Washington that the `US believes the case will be decided in line with Turkey`s secular democratic principles.` But just a few days before she made this statement, US State Department Spokesman Sean Mccormack said without making any reference to secularism that the US believes democracy was developing in Turkey and that Turkish laws and the Constitution should be interpreted away from political influences. These words had been considered a support by the AKP. So why did the US need this fine tuning which obviously didn`t make the AKP glad?

I guess there are a few reasons for this and clues about this can be seen in statements made by both Rice and Fried. First of all, as Rice said openly, Washington is closely following the closure case. Now, American officials don`t hide this. Obviously, the US thinks that results of this case will have an impact on its regional policies this way or the other. As the US started to understand details of the issue, it also started to see that the view reflected in McCormack`s first statement was very simple. By the way, the impact of recent articles written by important opinion leaders of the right like Michael Rubin that the danger of fundamentalism in Turkey can`t be ignored here. Similarly, it`s interesting in these terms that Democrat Party`s John Tanner who asked a question to Fried at the Committee on Foreign Affairs said that during his latest visit to Turkey he was told that fundamentalism was being developed in an undesired way.

To sum up, Washington has understood that intervening in this issue would exacerbate discussions in Turkey undesirably and that this situation wouldn`t serve its own interests. In other words, it believes that this issue should be solved by Turks, as part of Turkish laws. So we can conclude that the US will consider this domestic issue of Turkey during the process of the closure case only in terms of principles and wish that a solution to the issue will be found as part of democracy and the country`s Constitutional secular order.