BY HADI ULUENGIN
HURRIYET- Flying to Brussels two days ago with President Abdullah Gul, I was still thinking about his visit to Iraq. In other words, I wasn't thinking of this very important visit, the first to the EU on the presidential level, bolstered by our National Program. All the reporters in the pool were looking for a scoop, and wondering if Gul really said the word 'Kurdistan' in Iraq or not, or if it was just a slip of the tongue.
During the flight, as soon as Gul called us, this was the first thing we asked about, but to no avail. Gul said that he didn't want to get distracted on his way to Brussels for a very important strategic visit. He was completely right.
If he had responded to our question, his initiative with the EU would have been pushed off the headlines. So instead he stressed that if we raise our EU standards, everything would be gradually and automatically normalized. After calling this process 'soft power' and the 'culture of horizontal change,' he cited a series of improvements ranging from the new TRT broadcasts in Kurdish and Ankara signing the Kyoto Protocol, something unimaginable in the past.
Then Gul showed that he sees the EU as part of Turkey's general strategic vision through another concrete approach during his visit. The theme of 'bilateral reliability' was mentioned both in his meeting with European Commission Chairman Jose Manuel Barroso and in his remarks. Naturally, he expects the EU to show reliability. He requests that it doesn't pursue petty calculations, but trusts in Ankara, which granted foreign aid totaling $1 billion last year. Secondly, he wants the same Europe to have confidence in thinking big with Turkey. Obviously, of all the political figures in our country Gul is the one taking this long and narrow way the most seriously and aspiring to this goal the most. All his travels back and forth are like feeder roads which complement and lead to that strategic long, narrow way.