IZMIR - New Turkey Party (YTP) leader Ismail Cem said on Monday that an operation against Iraq which Turkey would take part in could cause great destruction.
Cem who delivered a speech in ''International Peace Conference'' which was organized by International Rotary Club in Aegean Izmir province said that Iraq issue was a sensitive subject which could not tolerate any non-seriousness. He added that Turkey should approach this issue very carefully and warned officials not to make wrong statements and to consider especially Turkish people and youth.
Cem said that there were wrong and dangerous statements such as ''We are dragging into a war'', ''more youths will die'', or ''we should certainly take part in this war''. He added that those statements showed Turkey as a country which others could bring along and drag into a war and that approach was a fatalist approach and very wrong. He said that Turkey's location and structure did not push it into such an obligation and added that YTP would not allow young people die.
Criticizing the statements such as ''Turkey should take part in the war'', Cem said that statements defending participation in a war meant that Turkey did not learn anything from the past experiences. He noted that some people had thought Turkey would gain a lot during the Gulf Crisis in the past and it would have almost invaded Kirkuk and if Turkey had done that, there would have been thousands of dead people. Cem also said that General Staff Headquarters fortunately adopted a serious attitude against politics and did not allow Turkey get into such an adventure.
Cem said that sending Turkish youths to a disputable war against which the whole world approached cautiously and European Union (EU) assumed a negative attitude would be an unjust move against the country and the parents of the young people.
Noting that founding a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq was a dangerous but unspoken issue, Cem said that if an ethnic state was established close to Turkey's border, there would be serious clashes between Arabian and Kurdish people like in Israel and Palestine and war in the Middle East would give significant damages. He added that Turkey should be serious and careful about the issue of the northern part of Iraq. Cem said that war could also give harm to economy.