Trusting The U.S.

STAR- Columnist Zeynep Gurcanli comments on trusting the US concerning the Iraq crisis. A summary of her column is as follows:
One of the problems in the meetings held with the US is northern Iraqi Kurds’ armament. Ankara is against the US’ giving northern Iraqi Kurdish groups even the light weapons. The weapons of forest watchmen, who were organized against the terrorist organization PKK previously, were then directed to the Turkish soldiers. It’s a great concern these days that the same problem will occur in northern Iraq during or after the US operation. It’s interesting that the US prefers to burden the responsibility of giving these weapons on Turkey, instead of giving relieving replies to Ankara. The things Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis told us during our talk with him at Parliament are very interesting. Yakis said, that the US had answered the question, ‘Why are you giving the Kurds so much weapons?’ as follows: ‘We requested Turkey’s permission to pass 120,000 soldiers from Turkey to northern Iraq but it hasn’t been permitted. We need Kurds’ support to carry out the operation with a minimum of risk and we’ll use their armed forces. Therefore we have to give them weapons.’
The only benefit Turkey had gained during the negotiations it held with the US to remove its concerns concerning the issue of Kurds’ armament was the US’ promise to recollect the weapons given to Kurds after the war.
The lack of confidence in the US derives not only from the Washington administration’s not keeping the promises it made to Turkey during 1991’s Gulf War. It’s also disturbing for Ankara that the US officials are holding ‘strategic partner’ bargains with Turkey but on the contrary they also have a relation of ‘union of faith’ with northern Iraqi Kurds. It’s interesting that the same disturbance is also present in northern Iraq. This concern is the reason of Kurdish officials’ aggravating their tone in their explanations against Turkey lately. The US is trying to calm Ankara with US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s explanations and northern Iraqi Kurds with US President Bush’s Envoy to the Iraqi opposition Zalmay Khalilzad’s words. The document that puts forward Khalilzad’s efforts of calming in the most concrete way is the written statement made by the US Embassy in Ankara. The statement made by Khalilzad earlier this week is concerning the pleasing developments about reaching an agreement on a memorandum of understanding in the negotiations between Turkey and the US. Stating that the situation in northern Iraq is also important, Khalilzad added, ‘We believe that the operation to be carried out by the coalition forces will be in a full coordination and Turkey will be in compliance with it in northern Iraq. When the mission is over, all the coalition forces will withdraw from the region.’ Khalilzad emphasized that the US’ ‘Kurdish friends’ will work in cooperation with Turkey to rescue the Iraqi people surely. Are you aware of the fact that we have a communication with northern Iraqi Kurds as if it’s ‘an independent state,’ either indirectly or through the US. The US put Turkey and northern Iraqi Kurds on the same scale concerning the operation against Iraq. Can we trust the memorandum of understanding signed with the US and its written and verbal guarantees? Not the operation against Iraq, but the post-operation period is likely to be more difficult for Turkey.

SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION