HURRIYET- Columnist Oktay Eksi comments on Turkey’s stance concerning the Cyprus issue and the Iraq crisis. A summary of his column is as follows:
Is this the end of the road in terms of the Cyprus issue? Considering the decision made by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, one can say that this is the end of the road. Just after Annan, European Union Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen delivered an ultimatum, stating, ‘If the problem cannot be solved until May 1, 2004, in which the Cypriot Republic [actually he means Southern Cyprus] will be an EU member, and there are still the Turkish soldiers, Turkey would be occupying the EU land and of course this would effect Turkey’s EU membership [negatively].’ He didn’t say these sentences word by word but this was his message. As you see, they don’t seem to have heard about each other.
There is also the Iraq crisis. The US has already made up his mind to attack Iraq. We should either support it or be opposed to it. However, we have been putting the US off for months. I would like Turkey say no to it. However, as Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok said, ‘if we are in a situation to chose lesser of two evils,’ why are we prolonging it? Even Saudi Arabia assumed an attitude clearly at the beginning. It just said to the US, ‘I wouldn’t permit the deployment of the US soldiers into my land but you can use the existing bases.’ Jordan did the same thing as well. It informed the US on the things it would permit and oppose. Then the US made its calculations according to it. Only Turkey pretends that it will help the US but when it comes to make a decision, it doesn’t act in an consistent way. If Turkey wants to burden the responsibility, it would say yes and wouldn’t put itself into the situation of an unreliable country.
If there hadn’t been an interaction between the EU and the United Nations, both Europe and Annan would have waited for years more for the Cyprus issue. We shouldn’t deceive ourselves. We are preparing a very bad future for ourselves with these notes of unreliability.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION