GUL KNOCKED DOWN A TABOO
Mehmet Ali Birand

Turkish Daily News
Sept 9 2008

Until the game was over, I had my heart in my mouth. I expected
an incident during the football match played between the national
football teams of Turkey and Armenia on Sat. in the Armenian capital
Yerevan. Frankly, it was a horrible match. Neither Armenian nor
Turkish players were good on the field. But in the end, we won it,
2-0. I cannot help myself but to mention here, if we had played that
game against the Belgians we could’ve been nailed down by them. Let’s
know this.

The only minor incident was that a group of people whistled while
the Turkish national anthem was played.

It wasn’t a big deal at all.

We had so many of them; let’s not forget about the Turkey-Greece
matches by the way!

Until President Abdullah Gul and the National Football Team left
Yerevan, nothing had happened. So we relaxed big time.

But what happened in the Armenian capital? Let me tell you what.

· First of all, a new period of dialogue has begun.

· The Turkish Foreign Ministry delegation remained in Yerevan to
devise a road map and a time line.

· Bilateral talks that have continued in Switzerland for months will
be taken to a higher level.

· Contacts among foreign ministers and leaders of both countries
will begin.

· Armenian President Serge Sarkisian will visit Istanbul for a return
game. (Frankly, my real fear is the possible protests at the match
here. Armenians showed that they are not against rapprochement. We’ll
see what we will do. The Armenian administration and society showed
sincerity and their preference for close relations. Now the ball is
in our court. We’ll see if we really want this to happen.) No matter
what, Sarkisian’s visit to Istanbul will accelerate talks.

Until the date, Armenians had always wanted to talk about opening the
border without any conditions. Turkey, on the other hand, had insisted
on talks on conditions and underlined that talks were possible only
if all the issues between the two countries such as border issues,
the genocide allegations and the Karabakh issue.

Both sides made compromises. The Armenians gave the impression that
they would discuss all issues. Ankara took steps showing that they
gave up on preconditions.

Now what?

>From now on, we should closely follow some developments.

· Statements issued by the Armenian and Turkish officials will be
followed. We’ll check to see if friendship remarks outweigh those of
hatred who will say what about this new process.

· We’ll see how the Armenian Diaspora will react to this. Will
Yerevan support the Diaspora’s fierce stance or will it put a distant
between them?

· Will Armenians make any gesture in the Karbakah conflict with
Azerbaijan, even if it is only symbolic? Or will they do nothing?

Unfortunately, the Turkish-Armenian relations are not only at Ankara
and Yerevan’s discretion. Foreign powers are involved in and effective
so much, I am sure a new crisis will outbreak in the days to come.

If Sarkisian and Gul maintain their approaches of the day, they
change the course of the history. If they give into fanatics, nothing
positive will come result. Still, I extend my gratitude to both Gul
and Sarkisian for knocking down this taboo.

Is Erdogan jealous of Gul?

We had begun the weekend with excitement.

What was to happen over the weekend? Was the risk Gul took to bring
anything good or a disaster? What would be the score of the game? What
kind of reactions were we shown if we had won it by 5-0 or had been
defeated? Could there have been any protests? Or were the games of
some circles who are after tension be ruined and we start a new period?

There, as we have begun to talk all these, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan stole the show. All TVs and everyone was getting prepared to
talk about Gul’s visit to Yerevan, Erdogan, all of a sudden, targeted
Aydın Dogan, the Dogan Holding’s owner for two days.

Can you imagine prime minister of Turkey was excoriating the owner of
the biggest group of the country? Who cares about Armenia? It turned
out to be such an exciting event and so many rumors were involved
that we all forget about Gul and Armenia. Attention was turned to
this mouth-watering subject. The entire visit ran to waste.

If Erdogan wanted to scare away Dogan and make the independent media
keep silent, couldn’t he have waited for a couple of days?

Besides, I have been a journalist for 40 years. To date, I have seen
many government leaders who argued with the media. But I assure you
that I have not seen any government saving itself from such battle
of words.

Erdogan has done so many good jobs in this country. I supported him
in my articles and will continue to do so. But in this subject, he is
awfully wrong. He has risen to the bait of some. I do believe in Dogan.

You may feel differently. I respect you. But this is my view.

–Boundary_(ID_YVZylUS5NcKpicfntRZ/0A)–