HURRIYET- Columnist Oktay Eksi writes on Turkish-US relations, the Cyprus issue, and Iraq. A summary of his column is as follows:
Sometimes things which at first glance seem wholly unrelated later, upon closer examination, turn out to have intimate, if tenuous, connections.
Could you ever imagine that Marshall Tito’s Yugoslavia, which used to be composed of six federal states, would one day crumble to pieces and that two of its remnants, Serbia and Montenegro, would form a confederation, thus declaring to the world the end of a 74-year-old state?
Yes, that’s exactly what happened two days ago when the Serbian and Montenegrin Parliaments adopted this new establishment and formed a new state with common defense and foreign policies and a common capital in Belgrade. And, while we were racking our brains as to whether the Belgian or Dominican Republic-Haitian model presented a better solution to the Cyprus problem, now, thanks to our good luck, we have another option(!) before us: The Serbia-Montenegro model. Let’s leave this issue for the moment and turn to some others (but we’ll be back).
Yesterday’s Hurriyet reported that US Vice President Dick Cheney had telephoned Prime Minister Abdullah Gul this week and told him, ‘You shall be quick and make a decision [on Iraq] immediately.’ And he went even further (with what earthly authority?) and told the premier, ‘(Please?) pass the necessary resolution in Parliament on Thursday [today] to allow US troops to be stationed in Turkey.’ Prime Minister Gul reportedly replied, ‘We will discuss this issue in Parliament on Feb. 18 [after the holiday]. I can’t make the Turkish people accept both opening a northern front into Iraq and giving concessions on Cyprus at the same time.’
In fact the prime minister’s intended meaning must have been something like this: ‘If you want your troops stationed in our country, then give us some help on the Cyprus issue.’
What sort of help could Turkey be expecting from the US on Cyprus? It could be Washington abandoning its longstanding policy of not recognizing the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), or at least ceasing to block other countries from recognizing it. Or the US could help Turkey push for changes in UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Cyprus plan in line with the TRNC’s demands. Or it could be that the US supports a Serbian-Montenegrin model, a confederation, if not a Dominican Republic-Haitian model which is based on the presence of two separate states.
We do have a strategic partnership with the US, don’t we? If that’s really the case, then now the ball is on Washington’s court.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION