Gonul: We Should Meet The U.S. Requests

BY FIKRET BILA
MILLIYET- Columnist Fikret Bila comments on Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul’s stance on US requests from Turkey on Iraq’s reconstruction. A summary of his column is as follows:
Does the US have certain requests from Turkey such as our deploying soldiers for peacekeeping purposes? Yesterday Ankara was all abuzz with this question. When I met with him, Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul told me, ‘Reporters asked me if NATO had requests from Turkey and I said no. However, NATO and the US are different. The US has desires, but it hasn’t made any formal request. It’s asking in what ways and how much we can contribute to Iraq’s reconstruction and stability in the postwar period. It wants to determine our contributions with a long and detailed list. The list includes soldiers, nuclear weapons experts, ballistic missile experts and technical staff ready to repair buildings. We will evaluate this issue.’
‘It’s not clear who will meet the expenses required by our contribution and how,’ he added. ‘We will evaluate this issue as well.’ When asked if Turkey should meet these requests, Gonul replied, ‘Of course we should. Even if we can’t, we should give a positive answer. Iraq’s reconstruction and stability are very important as well. Turkey would be glad to contribute to this cause.’
From this point forward, Ankara will work to strengthen its relations with the US. Turkey wants to take all the steps which will give it a proper role in postwar Iraq. This is what I understood from Gonul’s approach. Ankara has taken important steps so the bad feelings caused by our rejection of US troop deployments will be quickly dispelled and it intends to continue this process. The US requests of Turkey show that the half-century Turkish-US relationship didn’t go up in smoke with our rejection of the deployments. As long as we don’t jump at our own shadow, the US will need Turkey’s help and support every day and we should act with this understanding constantly in mind.

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