BY TUFAN TURENC
HURRIYET- I know that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his staff will ignore the suggestions given by Sukru Elekdag, the experienced diplomat who once served as Turkey’s ambassador to Washington. However, the Turkish public should hear his vitally important suggestions. Elekdag recently said, ‘The elections in Kirkuk had many defects.’ He charged that the polls were held without oversight, ignored census results, and that 20% of the nation didn’t vote. He added that such an election couldn’t be considered valid, but that unfortunately the world had accepted it. Stating that the elections in the northern city of Kirkuk and the province of al-Tamim were held under particularly bad conditions, Elekdag said Turkey should press on this issue. As you may know, the last one-and-a-half years have seen efforts to settle Kurdish immigrants in Kirkuk. Things are so out of joint that even the Americans, who at first took no notice of this, are concerned and warned that such efforts were illegal. However, when Kurds threatened that they would boycott the elections, the US fell silent.
In the elections in northern Iraq, Kurds won 59% of the votes while the Turkmen got 16%. Ankara mildly criticized the situation but then was obliged to accept the situation. So, what should Turkey do now? ‘Firstly, we should request that the UN send a delegation to the region to investigate if the elections were legal or illegal,’ said Elekdag. Secondly, we should request the cancellation of the election results and the implementation of a census, if it’s determined that the region’s population structure was altered. The Kurds and Shiites might not accept this. This way we can send the message that Turkey is following the situations and is not mere onlooker to developments. Thirdly, Arabs who say that Kirkuk is Arab land should get involved. For Elekdag, there are two dangers awaiting Iraq: firstly, that the Shiite-Kurdish alliance will strengthen increase the Sunni opposition, leading to a civil war. Secondly, Iraq could become a headquarters for al-Qaeda. The following should be done to prevent this: the US should get the UN involved in Iraq, withdraw its forces in accordance with a timetable and include the forces of Islamic countries which don’t border Iraq. Elekdag shows that Iraq will become a hot potato for the entire world.