Summary of turkish Newspaper columns sep 2006

Summaries of selected opinions from the Turkish press on September 4 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News
Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Erdoğan's statement, the PKK and Lebanon:
Radikal's Murat Yetkin yesterday commented on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent statement that “the military is not somewhere to sit and unwind” in response to a person who interrupted his speech, shouting, “Mr. Prime Minister, we don't want to see any more martyrs' funerals.” According to Yetkin the prime minister's statement could backfire. In a parliamentary group meeting of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül gave a speech to convince deputies to vote for a resolution allowing troop dispatch to a U.N. force in Lebanon. Yetkin says, contrary to a failed resolution to allow the U.S. military to use bases in Turkey to attack Iraq in 2003, the Lebanon resolution is likely to be ratified in Parliament for a number of reasons. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer's objection to troop dispatch has unified his opponents within the AKP. In addition, unlike the Iraq decision, there is a U.N. resolution, and the AKP would not want to further strain ties with the United States. However, the issue of Lebanon has become a major theme in domestic politics within the context of the increased deaths of Turkish soldiers by Kurdish terrorists in the East. The slogan “Troops not to Lebanon but to Kandil” in Iraq, the hideout of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). No matter how strongly Gül insists that the PKK and Lebanon are two separate problems, the public will not perceive it as such. This is why, according to Yetkin, the negative reaction evinced by the prime minister's statement that the military is not a place to “sit and unwind” is natural. Yetkin maintains that the statement might receive an adverse reaction within the AKP as well. Although the statement is not powerful enough to change the expected outcome of the Lebanon vote, it will definitely become a headache for Erdoğan during the rough EU process, presidential elections and increasing separatist violence in the East.

Troops should be dispatched:
Sabah's Aslı Aydıntaşbaş yesterday said if Parliament passes the government resolution on deploying troops to the U.N. Lebanon force, Turkish soldiers would set foot in the Middle East, which was ruled by the Ottomans for centuries, for the first time since the Turkish Republic was founded. Aydıntaşbaş supports the idea of troop dispatch, saying that U.N. involvement in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict has certain benefits for Turkey. For one thing, instability in the region poses a potential threat to Turkey, which, with aspirations to become a regional power, cannot turn its back on regional problems. Only weak states are introverted. Troop deployment would bring prestige to Turkey and a say on regional issues. In addition, all sides involved welcome Turkish troops in southern Lebanon. Opinionated and isolationist circles opposed to sending troops according to Aydıntaşbaş are doing so simply for the sake of opposition. Overall, sending troops is more advantageous than staying out, Aydıntaşbaş concludes.

As millions starve:
Cumhuriyet's Oktay Akbal yesterday said in his column that Israel had no right to attack Lebanon. Beirut was torn apart, with schools, hospitals, bridges, roads and other facilities ruined by the Israeli attack in addition to thousands killed and maimed.
Akbal states that now a fund-raising campaign to rebuild Lebanon is in place, until another Israeli attack that might be triggered by an order from the Bush administration. At the same time, millions are starving in Africa. According to Akbal the United Nations is simply not functioning to serve its raison d'etre, to end hunger in the world and promote world peace. However, the so-called “civilized” world will one day have to answer for genocide in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Final situation on the Middle Eastern front:
Yeni Şafak's Ali Bayramoğlu yesterday wrote about the troop-dispatch resolution. Bayramoğlu, like most other writers, assumed that the resolution would be ratified with no difficulty. However, Bayramoğlu says no other country has discussed troop deployment so vehemently as Turkey because the discussion has turned into an issue of domestic politics. Since none of the political parties in Turkey has a regional or global political analysis known to the public, they have to be populist or cunning at best. At the same time, the Turkish public is aware of the fact that it is a nation combining Eastern and Western aspects at the same time. Any international crisis along the West-East axis immediately turns into a matter of domestic politics. Sending troops to Lebanon in the Turkish context is much more than sending troops to the U.N. force. Bayramoğlu maintains this is the reason behind the fierce discussions on the subject here. This is positive in the sense that it shows an increased level of knowledge of and interest towards world politics, but on the other hand it obscures the real issue. The possible outbreak of a crisis with Iran would deepen the clash to include Turkey. This is the real problem, and any other discussion on sending troops to Lebanon makes no sense.

This does not have to be our fate:
Milliyet's Derya Sazak yesterday wrote about the recent lives lost to Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorism. The grieving parents' cries at funerals were heartrending. At the same time, they were different from the traditional reactions of families of soldiers killed by the PKK. A mother who lost a son said: “I sent my son to the army. Did I send him for you to kill him?” The father said: “My son did not fight in the Anafartalar or Çanakkale War. He was not martyred. They put him into an ambiguous war.” Sazak also quoted an army general who said, “Terrorism has been Turkey's fate for years.” Sazak said although it is true that blood and tears have set on Turkey like a nightmare, terrorism is not the fate of Turkey. The way to avoid that fate is to produce rational and peaceful solutions and avoid the trap of those forces pushing Turkey into the Middle Eastern quagmire through Lebanon. For Sazak, the Lebanon crisis is part of a plan to leave Turkey in chaos and clashes against Kurdish citizens in the country's southeast. Sazak called on Parliament to vote against the troop dispatch resolution.