HURRIYET- Columnist Ferai Tinc writes on Turkish-US relations vis-a-vis the US’s determination to strike against Iraq and Turkey’s sensitivities on the issue. A summary of her column is as follows:
All the visitors from the US to Ankara over the last few months spoke with one voice. ‘We have to confer with Turkey if we are to take any action in Iraq,’ they said. ‘This is certain.’ However, there is such a large and striking gap between words and actions on the issue that these promises now ring hollow. They go in one ear and out the other. Leaving aside conferring with Turkey, the US is even intimidating us. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, in an interview with journalist Leyla Umar, said that no matter how firmly Turkey opposes such an attack, the US is absolutely determined to go ahead with it and the US has told Ankara that if it refuses to consent to a possible operation, this won’t work in its favor. This is what the prime minister is saying. Washington should at best be sincere about Turkey’s sensitivity on the future of the Turkmen population living in northern Iraq. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz made a very clear statement on this issue during his recent visit to Ankara, saying that the Turkmens would also be taken into account in deciding northern Iraq’s future. However, not even a month after this visit, the US excluded the Turkmens from meetings expected to be held with Iraqi opposition groups against Saddam Hussein. Washington is consulting with Turkey but not listening to it. Yet the destiny of the Middle East is now being redrawn for the second time since the Ottoman era, and the region’s age-old problems cannot be solved within any framework from which Turkey has been excluded. Furthermore, democratization of the region hinges on Turkey. That is why Turkey is the key country to be given serious consideration in developments of the coming era.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION