GUL’S GIFT: THE CARGILL LAW
Kemal Balci

The New Anatolian, Turkey
Feb 5 2007

During his visit to the U.S. this week, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
will have a valuable gift in hand. A legal problem faced by Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during all his previous U.S. trips,
leading to personal involvement from President George W. Bush,
reached legal assurance through the extraordinary efforts of the
government. Established on first-class agriculture land in Bursa,
the corn factory of U.S. agribusiness giant Cargill seems set to take
a case that it lost in court and win it through politics. Carrying
the Cargill law in hand, Gul expects to get in return a gift basket
containing measures to be taken by the U.S. against the terrorist
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an Armenian resolution at the U.S.
House, and the fait accompli of the Greek Cypriot administration on
the island, as well as support on the Kirkuk issue.

However, neither the Cargill law nor similar gifts can meet the
expectation of the U.S. While the Iraq occupation continues to give
big trouble to the government, now the U.S. government has set its
sights on a military operation against Iran. There’s no way the
Turkish government can get what it wants before fully meeting the
expectations of the U.S. regarding Iran.

After Parliament hastily passed the Cargill law, the government may get
the attention of the U.S. a bit, but that’s all. The law was passed by
Parliament last November, yet President Ahmet Necdet Sezer vetoed it
then. Now that the law’s been passed again without any differences,
the president doesn’t have a right to veto it again. So it will come
into force Perhaps the Constitutional Court may cancel the law, but
during this process the Cargill firm will use its "acquired right"
and make the decision to close the plant invalid.

The firm won’t even have to pay any fine, as the government made
the land where the Cargill plant is located into an industrial area
through a Cabinet decision.

Foreign Minister Gul is trying to get the consent of the U.S. to
appease the Turkish Armed Forces’ (TSK) growing impatience to take
action against the terrorist PKK. It’s obvious that the steps taken so
far towards this end didn’t work. Despite giving numerous promises,
the U.S. government has failed to put forth sustained measures
not only on issues regarding military operations against the PKK,
but also on issues like cutting the group’s financial resources or
closing its political bureaus.

The U.S. is afraid that a possible cross-border operation by Turkish
soldiers against the PKK may turn into an active intervention of
Turkey in Kirkuk, northern Iraq. Moreover, Washington fears that
before it becomes official, Turkey may eliminate prevent a state of
"Kurdistan" from being declared in northern Iraq.

The U.S. government is trying to escape from the "big trap" they’re
in in Iraq and to keep up the "huge game" they’re trying to win. The
only sure ally they can find in this process isn’t Turkey — their
official "strategic partner" — but the feudal Kurdish power in the
north. Losing power right now both in Iraq and on the border with
Iran border doesn’t suit the U.S.

But the Turkish government, instead of noticing this huge game and
acting accordingly, prefers to meet its big expectations with small
presents. While facing very serious difficulties, Turkey may fall
into the trap the U.S. government fell into with the mistakes they
made at the beginning of the war.

Following the visit of Gul, Chief of General Staff Gen. Yasar
Buyukanit’s trip to the U.S. next week, on Feb. 11, will reveal whether
we’ve fallen into the trap. Unfortunately we have to sit and wait
until then. It’s only after these trips that we’ll be able to see the
meaning of recent military operations on the Iraqi and Iranian borders.