US MISTAKES, TURKISH MISTAKES

I believe it was a mistake for Parliament to reject the proposal on deploying US troops as well as for the government to drag its feet on this matter. It was also wrong for President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to cause a misguided focus on legalities. Moreover, the military’s silence on the proposal because the ‘issue belonged to Parliament,’ this too was mistaken. Today our serious problems on Iraq come from our ‘excluding’ ourselves through these mistakes.
However, the US committed many blunders as well. It failed to reassure Turkey on the northern Iraq issue, and instead only raised more suspicions. In addition, everyone knows that the US has military might, but who did it manage to convince of the rightness of its cause besides Britain and Spain? The US asked so many things from Ankara and put pressure on it. However, it ignored our request to take steps on certain critical issues. These factors caused a ‘lack of motivation’ in Ankara. Even in the US press there were criticisms along these lines: ‘We were unable to convince even an ally like Turkey.’ During his visit to Ankara last month, Powell said that he was here to ‘kiss and to make up,’ but his manner just led to new problems.

Sukru Elekdag, a respected ex-diplomat and strategist, told me this: ‘France and Germany each opened new their airspaces to the US. If they hadn’t done so, this would have cost US planes an extra 20 minutes. However, if Turkey hadn’t opened up its airspace, the US would have been unable to bomb northern Iraq and supply fuel oil to its forces.’ Stating that Turkey had contributed to the war like a ‘third ally’ after Britain, Elekdag said, ‘As the war ended in short order, now the US is belittling Turkey’s contributions. What would have happened if the war had been protracted? In the upcoming period in the Middle East, the US will have great need of Turkey.’

Is this why Wolfowitz is speaking this way? However, for the same reason we should improve our relations. The US acts like an ‘empire’ which wants to use pressure to carry out its foreign policy agenda, and this is feeding the flames of anti-Americanism. Such a development in our region wouldn’t help us, either. The proper thing to do would be to re-establish a spirit of confidence and cooperation towards solutions to our mutual problems.”