Middle East Times, Egypt
May 11 2007

US keeps low profile as Turkey simmers in crisis
AFP

May 11, 2007

WASHINGTON — The United States is lying low as a political crisis
unfolds in Turkey, a pivotal military ally that the administration
sees as a democratic bridge between Islam and Europe.

Washington has given only a muted response to veiled threats of
intervention from the Turkish military to prevent the election of an
Islamist figure as the staunchly secular country’s president.

"There’s a lack of trust in Ankara, so wise counsel to the generals
to keep to their barracks wouldn’t do much good in this situation,"
said Steven Cook, an expert on Turkey at the Council on Foreign
Relations in New York.

"America’s standing in Turkey is quite low, so probably the best
thing for the administration is to continue to keep a low profile and
say it supports democracy in Turkey," he said.

The prospect of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which
has its roots in Islam, taking the presidency has touched off mass
protests in Turkey by opponents who want no mix between the state and
religion.

The AKP Thursday rushed a package of constitutional reforms through
parliament, including one that would permit Turkey’s president to be
elected directly by the people, instead of by lawmakers.

But the bill has to be approved by outgoing President Ahmet Necdet
Sezer, who, like the army, is a fierce defender of Turkey’s secular
traditions, and who has often clashed with the AKP.

"It’s very important that we support their democratic processes," US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday, after the AKP
failed twice to get its candidate for president elected by deputies.

Instability in Turkey would hardly be welcome in Washington, where
the country is viewed as a democratic bulwark and North Atlantic
Treaty Organization ally that straddles Europe and the Middle East.

But recent events have undermined the relationship. Tensions have
simmered since 2003, when Turkey refused to allow the US military to
transit its territory to open a northern front in the invasion of
Iraq.

Iraq continues to fuel those tensions. Turkey’s army chief last month
called for an incursion into northern Iraq, to hunt down PKK Kurdish
rebels who have been launching cross-border strikes from the Kurdish
zone of Iraq.

Turkey is meanwhile fuming over Kurdish plans to hold a referendum in
the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, suspecting a plot to
build up a viable, independent Kurdistan that could seep into its own
Kurdish region.

The secretary of state, however, said Turkey had shown "stronger
support … for the new democracy in Iraq than one might have
expected."

And Rice noted that the AKP-led government had pushed through major
reforms to bolster its case for membership of the European Union,
adding that Washington remained "very supportive" of Turkey’s entry
into the EU.

However, public support in Turkey for EU membership has slumped as
accession talks drag on at a snail’s pace, while French
president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy says that Turkey "does not have a
place" in the European club.

Analysts said that given the delicate backdrop in Iraq and Europe,
there was little the US administration could do to help ease the
political tensions in Turkey.

Michael Rubin at Washington’s American Enterprise Institute said the
US government would be "all talk and no actions" if the Turkish armed
forces were to push into northern Iraq against the PKK.

"There is a perfect storm looming this year, with two elections in
Turkey amplifying the political debate, the Kirkuk referendum, and
the possibility, still, of an Armenian genocide resolution in the US
Congress," Rubin added.

Any such resolution would infuriate Turkey, which rejects the
"genocide" label for the 1915 mass killings of ethnic Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress