Turkey’s mission

Our prime minister spoke of the chaos in Iraq last week during his meeting with the British premier, who is the other major partner of the bloody coalition. Britain is expected to act as a go-between between Turkey and the European Union. So our prime minister voiced his criticisms and expectations at the same time. If a country has self-confidence, such as stance is not improper.

Our prime minister is perhaps the only world leader to clearly condemn the torture scandal in Iraq, calling on his international counterparts to assume a humanitarian stance in the war-torn county. He is also one of the few statesmen to have branded the recent Israeli violence against the Palestinians as ‘acts of state terrorism.’ No matter how close are our relations with the US or how influential Jewish lobbies in the US are, adopting a peaceful and humanitarian stance must be a sine qua non for our foreign policy.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Parliament criticized the recent violations of human rights in Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Our Parliament is also skeptical about the US’ Greater Middle East Initiative. Next month’s NATO summit in Istanbul will address all these issues in detail. Perhaps our prime minister will ask about the place of the Iraqi and Palestinian tragedies within NATO’s mission? He will bring up how the concerns of the Islamic world about NATO and the GME could be assuaged.

Turkey is important to NATO, the US, Russia, the EU, Israel, the Palestinian territories and the Islamic world as well as Arabs, Kurds, Shiites, and Iranians… There is no doubt that Turkey also attaches the highest importance to its relations with these countries and groups.

Turkey is a great country. I’m not exaggerating, nor is this a vulgar nationalism. I just want to draw attention to the great potential of our country.

Getting rid of inferiority complexes…

Turkey might play a major role in the region. The NATO summit will be a test and will probably face many protests due to the recent developments in Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Let’s wait and see if the government can manage to maintain a balance between public protests and Turkey’s foreign policy. I want to be optimistic.”