BY FIKRET BILA (MILLIYET)
Columnist Fikret Bila comments on US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to Turkey yesterday. A summary of his column is as follows:
After meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday, during the top diplomat’s visit to Ankara, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul gathered together his staff. ‘Powell’s visit was more positive and productive than we had expected,’ Gul told the Foreign Ministry officials. ‘This visit has demonstrated that Turkey and the US are two close friends and that bilateral relations are going well.’
Both Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Gul were satisfied with Powell’s visit, which, they believe, proved that Turkey is indispensable for the Bush administration. Powell both mended bilateral ties and prepared a diplomatic ground on which the US might base its possible future requests from Turkey as the Iraq war continues. The US needed such a meeting to normalize its relations with Turkey, in a bid to obtain logistical support for its operations in northern Iraq and to mend bilateral ties, strained after Ankara refused to allow US troops to attack Iraq from its soil.
The most important issue discussed during Powell’s meetings in Ankara was Turkey’s stance on northern Iraq. Powell reiterated that the Bush administration did not want the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) to enter the region. For his part, Gul said, ‘Turkey does not want to face a huge rush of refugees towards its territories. We also want to ensure the safety of Iraq’s ethnic Turkmen groups and oppose Kurdish groups occupying Mosul or Kirkuk. If it sees that the situation is growing out of control, Turkey will feel it necessary to intervene in the region,’ Responding to Turkey’s concerns, Powell said that US forces in the region have the situation under control and that there is no need for Turkish troops to move across the border. Turkey wants to act in coordination with the US so as to avoid any crisis situation. The two officials agreed upon a process to provide ‘early warning’ of potential problems along the Turkish-Iraqi border. ‘We will rapidly form a coordination committee so that we monitor this closely,’ Powell told a press conference, ‘and we will also develop ways in the next several days to ensure that we understand how we would respond to a problem that might arise in northern Iraq that might affect Turkish interests.’ Gul wants to sign a written agreement as soon as possible laying out the principles on which the two countries have reached agreement. There are rumors that Zalmay Khalilzad, President Bush’s envoy to the Iraqi opposition, is dragging his feet on the work he needs to do, but diplomatic sources believe that after Powell’s visit Khalilzad will pick up the pace.
Powell’s visit has in fact succeeded in mending strained ties. The Bush administration has come to understand that it pursued a mistaken policy towards Ankara. If it holds its head high, Turkey will emerge a winner.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION