BY ZEYNEP GURCANLI
STAR- Wherever Turkey looks in the Middle East, it sees the United States. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul is currently trying to sound out the Israelis and Palestinians to gauge their views on Turkey’s possible ‘facilitator’ role in the region. The Turkish delegation wants to discuss not only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also what Ankara could do to help Israeli-Syrian relations recover.
Meanwhile, in an interesting story, Israeli daily Haaretz recently reported that during Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent visit to Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asked him to convey a message to Israel. It concerned the possible return of the body of an Israeli Mossad agent who was caught and executed in Syria in 1965. Gul is now expected to convey Syria’s conditions on the issue to Israel. Highly committed to the principle of looking after all of its citizens, including the deceased, Israel has for years been using every possible means to get back the body of its intelligence agent. Therefore, Israel places a high premium on both Syria’s message and Turkey’s ‘facilitator’ role in the region. However, Israel’s sole condition to accept Ankara as a facilitator is Washington’s approval, and here we find the real problem.
Unfortunately, we can’t really characterize this week’s visit to Ankara of US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as positive or constructive. Armitage reportedly held intense meetings and discussions with Turkish officials. They focused on Ankara’s disapproval of US policy towards the PKK in northern Iraq, namely Washington’s lenience on the terrorists and Kurdish groups there.
Armitage’s most heated conversation was with Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc. According to reports, after Armitage said that Washington was shocked by Parliament Human Rights Commission head Mehmet Elkatmis’ recent blasting of US operations in Iraq as ‘genocide,’ Arinc responded that although Ankara doesn’t necessarily agree with Elkatmis’ exact words, it could not understand and tolerate the killing of thousands of Iraqi civilians. ‘Our commission has gotten dozens of letters protesting US soldiers’ actions in Iraq, and I ask you to convey our dissatisfaction to your government,’ Arinc said. At that Armitage got very angry, thundering, ‘Saddam Hussein killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq. Did Mr. Elkatmis react to these killings?’ Arinc replied that Ankara had indeed protested these, stressing that Turkey always believed that Saddam Hussein was a dictator who did the greatest damage to his own people. ‘You can’t accuse us of being silent about the crimes committed in Iraq,’ he concluded.
In addition to this war of words between Arinc and Armitage, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul seemed to refuse to shake hands with the US official in front of the TV cameras. One can easily see how tense Turkish-US relations are. What do you think? Do you really believe Washington will allow Ankara to assume a ‘mediator’ role in the Middle East?