RALSTON AGAIN!
By Husnu Mahalli
Anatolian Times, Turkey
Feb 6 2007
AKSAM- US Special Envoy for countering terrorism Joseph Ralston came
to Ankara again. What’s more, he came not from Baghdad, but from Erbil,
that is, the capital of the Kurdistan Federated Region.
However, we were told that Ralston was supposed to work to coordinate
between Washington, Baghdad and Ankara. Even Shirvan Vaili got his
marching orders from the Iraqi government. Just like Ralston, he was
appointed special envoy for countering terrorism. But Ralston and
Turkey’s Special Envoy Edip Baser couldn’t meet with Vaili. Instead,
during his latest visit to Erbil, Ralston met with Kerim Sincari,
who was appointed by the Kurdish regional government. In other words,
Ralston is discussing the PKK issue directly with Kurds. When Ralston
was in Erbil, I keep an eye on the Kurdish TV channels, newspapers
and websites. According to all of them, Ralston is the American
coordinator on the ‘PKK and Kurds in Turkey.’ According to these
reports, Ralston and Barzani agree that the PKK and the Kurdish issue
should be solved only through dialogue and peaceful methods. In other
words, Turkey should sit at the table with the terrorist PKK and solve
its own Kurdish issue. We don’t know whom Ralston met with or how he
met with them in Erbil, but everybody knows that Americans have close
relations with PKK members in Kandil. In sum, neither Washington nor
Ralston want to solve the PKK issue right now.
According to Washington, the PKK issue can be solved only with one
condition: if the Justice and Development (AKP) government accepts all
the regional designs of the US. Maybe the Americans won’t come out and
say this, but probably they will give certain signs to Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul and the chief of General Staff to this effect. Meanwhile,
representatives of Jewish lobbies can be more frank, because they
have the trump card of blocking the so-called Armenian genocide
resolution at the US Congress, and now it’s time to use this. What’s
more, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will come to Ankara this
month and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is preparing to visit
Israel. However, the same Israel has always rejected Erdogan’s offers
to help broker peace between Israel, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon
and tried hard to prevent Turkey taking a regional role. However,
the same Turkey brought together Israel and Pakistan in the summer of
2005 in Istanbul and tried to make peace between these two countries,
which have no diplomatic relations with each other. Today Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf will tell Erdogan in Ankara that we should
contribute to the solution of these regional problems, mostly the
Palestine and Iraq issues. In additionright now Musharraf doesn’t
have very good relations with the US, and Afghan President Hamid
Kharzai is constantly accusing Pakistan of interfering in his
country’s domestic affairs and supporting the Taliban. However,
both Kharzai and Musharraf came to power with US support. In other
words, leaders whose common denominator is their serving the US
sometimes can’t reach an agreement between themselves and can even
be on opposite sides militarily. This column started with Ralston
and now has reached Kashmir. So Americans will put very complicated
demands to Turkey as well as other countries in the region and the
Iraqi Kurds in order to solve the PKK issue. The important thing
is to muddle people’s minds and prevent them from thinking soundly;
in other words, to sow confusion and capitalize on it.