BY SAMI KOHEN
MILLIYET- Unfortunately Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled his visit to Turkey due to the hostage crisis in his country. Actually his cancellation should be considered natural because when hundreds of his countrymen (including many children) are being held captive, it would be unthinkable for him to conduct his ‘crisis administration’ from Turkey. The action by Chechen militants in Russia’s north Ossetia region has put Putin in quite a bind. He will either maintain his old stance that ‘there is no bargaining with terrorists’ or, if the militants don’t release the hostages, try to solve the situation through force. Putin has tried force many times but the results haven’t been good. For example, when Chechens attacked a theatre two years ago in Moscow, the operation against them led to the deaths of 129 people. Putin faced harsh criticism for this. Now he’s trying the other alternative. In other words, he has started a sort of negotiation. Will it be successful? Here the difficulty is that the terrorists had put forth certain conditions which are completely unacceptable. For example, they called for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. No country would give into such a demand. However, a consensus can be reached on the terrorists’ other conditions.
It’s almost impossible to win an immediate success in the fight against terrorism. The best strategy against this new kind of war – that is, terrorism – is unknown. For many countries targeted by terrorism the most common strategy has been to refuse to bargain with them. For example, Turkey used this strategy in its fight against the PKK terrorist group. However, it’s sometimes impossible to be succeed through force, as the theatre incident showed. In other words, only using force against terrorism is not always a good solution. Using ‘flexible response’ tactics in the short-term and leaving the door open for direct or indirect contact or dialogue is usually a better way. Of course the real solution lies in addressing the political, social and economic factors causing terrorism. However, this is a longer-term goal.