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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (84523)	3/21/2003 11:21:09 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Turkish Daily editorial calling the situation with the US a fiasco: How could we mess up like this? Interesting. But it did come from a PUK web site. Still, as time goes on and Turkey is left to shoulder the economic fallout without the $30 billion aid package, I imagine more Turkish voices will be asking the same question.

To: Ilaine who wrote (84523)	3/21/2003 1:48:07 PM
From: FaultLine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

How could we mess up like this? Turkish Daily Editorial March 20, 2003 puk.org By Ilnur Sevik [thanks CB, very interesting... --fl] This is the first administration in Turkish history that managed to ruin Turkey's ties with the US and the EU at the same time and in such a short time span Those of us who understand anything about international relations would see very clearly that Turkey has lost the trust of the United States and has disqualified itself from the Iraqi equation... The notorious government motion that was supposed to define the Turkish involvement in the Iraq war has been turned into a nonentity with the U.S. telling Turkey "we only want overflight rights and the rest is meaningless." This means the U.S. did not even request using Turkish bases or deploying troops in Turkey. They simply gave the elbow to Turkey leaving Ankara empty handed with no economic relief to cushion the negative effects of the war. On Wednesday the U.S. simply made a statement saying it will support the Turkish economy as long as Turkey sticks to the IMF and World Bank programs. They did not mention any new economic package which is to be expected when you are so uncooperative with Washington... Well done gentlemen! No other administration could have performed this miracle of ruining our ties with the United States and the European Union at the same time... At first our government just stalled the Americans. Then we toyed with them for weeks. In the end we could not deliver the motion and put everything into disarray. Now the Americans have shown that they do not take us seriously anymore and that Turkey will remain an ally but only an ally. The scandal lived with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as our people tried to bargain with him and were left empty handed is an insult to our country. If the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government had no intention of cooperating with the Americans they should have told them from the start and thus would not have angered Washington as much. As Turkey did in the first Gulf War they could have allowed the use of the Turkish bases by the Americans but they did not even do this. Now when Turkey says its is willing to cooperate with the U. S. in exchange for hard cash the Americans turn to Turkey and say "too late." A complete fiasco. No one can explain how this government has been so much misguided, misinformed and completely put off the track. How did sensible people like Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gul who have been supported by the Americans since the day AK Party was founded have managed to disappoint Washington like this remains a mystery. Some people are even joking that someone may have cast a spell on Erdogan and Gul forcing them to make such mistakes. There is even gossip that the AK Party leadership is in fact Islamist and moved to finish off Turkey's relations with the West (both the U.S. and Europe)... We doubt this. All we can say is they listened to the wrong people who kept on telling them the Americans could not launch a war against Iraq without Turkey and those who urged them to use Byzantium tactics to bargain with the Americans... If they had listened to us or at least only read our editorials more carefully in the past two months they would not have made such fatal mistakes. "Gecmis olsun" to all of us . ilnur.cevik@tdn1.com