By Ilnur Cevik
TDN- In yesterday's editorial we urged our government to postpone the visit of our foreign minister to Damascus scheduled for Sunday and we are happy to note that our friendly warning has hit the nail and the visit has been cancelled. Common sense has prevailed.
In the second part of our editorial on "what should be done" on Iraq we feel we have to concentrate on northern Iraq.
The fact that we have disqualified ourselves from the Iraqi equation with the decision of Parliament not to allow the deployment of American troops on Turkish soil and thus we have prevented the creation of an effective northern front has left us in the cold...
Now we have to pick up the pieces and establish a new policy concerning northern Iraq.
We have to establish a strong consultation mechanism with the Iraqi Kurds and the Americans while we also play a key role as the only secure route for the much needed humanitarian aid for Iraq in general and for northern Iraq in particular.
Turkey has to name a coordinator for Iraq who will do trouble shooting as well as establish special links with the Iraqi Kurds, the Turkomans and all the other groups that will have a say in the running of the country in the future.
Lack of coordination and a proper consultation mechanism has created the mess we experienced in Kirkuk on Thursday and in Mosul on Friday. The Kurdish fighters entered the two cities and it took an ultimatum from Turkey to replace them with American troops and secure their withdrawal. This should never have been necessary.
Yes, promises were made to Turkey that the Kurdish fighters and civilians would not enter Kirkuk and Mosul once liberated but the promises remained in the air. It took a strong warning from Ankara to put things right.
If there had been a proper mechanism of consultations and cooperation the sides would have seen that with the fall of Baghdad the Iraqi defense structure crumbled with the Iraqi army throwing in the towel in Kirkuk and Mosul long before the Americans could establish a strong presence in northern Iraq. Then sides would have talked on how to handle this situation without some Kurdish fighters jumping the gun and entering Kirkuk.
Both the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) should have sent their fighters around Kirkuk and Mosul to set up a buffer zone so that other Kurdish civilians should not try to flood the area from the outside and create new complications as they are doing now. We could have drawn their attention to this and no harm would have been done.
Then of course there is the constant provocations of some Turkoman groups who claim their members have been kidnapped and even massacred. This seems to be designed to antagonize the Turkish military and force it to intervene. That too could easily be handled if such a mechanism was set up.
We have to establish the fact that as non-Arabs the Kurds, Turkomans and even the Assyrians all need each other to survive against Arab nationalism which will inevitably be sharper after this American invasion of Iraq.
Turkey should see the Kurds and Turkomans as its partners and help them in every possible way. But the Kurds also have to accept Turkey as a friend and stop some displays of opportunism.