DAVUTOGLU: IRAQI NATIONAL ELECTIONS KEY TO STABILITY IN MIDEAST
Today’s Zaman
July 21 2009
Turkey
Turkey’s top diplomat warned on Monday the upcoming national elections
in Iraq will be a critical test for the whole region and expressed
hope that the parliament to be formed after the elections will truly
represent all
Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, told reporters that
multi-ethnic and multi-religious Iraq will fare much better if the
election results represent the diversity of the country. He also
reiterated his earlier call that Turkey sees and treats all groups
in Iraq with the same respect and said, "Turkey is the only country
who has successfully established a dialogue with all parties in Iraq."
Touching on recent diplomatic initiatives to eliminate the terrorist
threat originating from northern Iraq and targeting Turkey, Davutoglu
said both the Turkish and Iraqi governments are working to remove
conditions for the need to invoke "hot pursuit" by Turkish security
forces. "We need to take every precautionary measure to tackle the
security problem in the region," he said, stressing that Turkey and
Iraq should cooperate in all areas, not just the military arena.
As a sign of an increased engagement, the Turkish and Iraqi cabinets
will convene together in Turkey soon under the leadership of both
prime ministers, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Nouri al-Maliki, he also
announced. In what Davutoglu described as a "high profile strategic
council meeting," all the appropriate cabinet ministers will be
present to discuss bilateral issues concerning both countries.
Complementing the council meetings, bureaucrats from different
ministries in both countries will be in constant contact, pursuing
issues on a bilateral level and furthering relations in many
fields. Moreover, Turkey, Iraq and the United States will maintain the
trilateral mechanism in the fight against terrorism and will continue
to cooperate in a number of areas ranging from energy to the economy,
he said. The Turkish foreign minister also emphasized that Turkey is
the most sensitive country over the issue of keeping the territorial
integrity of Iraq, saying it is unfortunate to see problems recently
brewing between the central government and the regional government
in northern Iraq.
No disagreement on Nabucco Sharing the background events leading up
to a milestone Nabucco agreement held in Ankara on July 13, Davutoglu
dismissed rumors that the Foreign Ministry was in disagreement with
the Energy Ministry over the terms of the agreement. "We had decided
on the date of the signing ceremony at the June 29 Cabinet meeting,"
he said, scrambling all bureaucrats in both ministries to make the
event happen in 12 days. "It was a great success in a very short
period of time," he noted, recalling that the two prime ministers
cut their vacations short to attend the high-profile meeting.
Regarding the clashes targeting Muslim Uighur Turks in China’s
Xinjiang region, Davutoglu said Turkey and China have developed an
understanding on the situation and were able to manage the crisis
without seriously hurting bilateral relations. He said his government
sees the developments in Xinjiang from a human rights perspective
about which the Chinese government understood Turkey’s sensitivity.
Following his 70-minute phone conversation with his Chinese
counterpart, Yang Jiechi, during which he conveyed Turkish concerns,
Davutoglu said China immediately sent a special envoy, Song Aiguo, a
former Chinese ambassador to Ankara, to explore the Turkish position
and explain the Chinese approach. Before returning to China, Song
said he was leaving Turkey happy because "there is a political will
in Turkey striving to improve relations with China."
Talking about the stalled EU membership process, Davutoglu said the
EU and Cyprus is the first priority on the Turkish foreign policy
agenda. He said relations with the EU Commission and the council
are going well, saying, "They are aware of the new reform momentum
we have undertaken." He praised the Reform Monitoring Group (RMG)
meetings, attended by ministers from EU Affairs, the Foreign Ministry,
the Interior Ministry and the Justice Ministry, as a way to speed up
the reforms that needed to be implemented. "All bureaucrats attend
those meetings, and we take the necessary decisions swiftly," he said.
The foreign minister also stated he was hopeful about the development
of relations in the coming year and a half because three pro-Turkey
EU member states, Sweden, Spain and Belgium, will be chairing the
European Council during that time.
Commenting on the ongoing bilateral talks between the president of the
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), Mehmet Ali Talat, and Greek
Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias, Davutoglu said he saw the process
as the last opportunity to end the division of the island. "Either
the status quo will change, which is what we want, or we will all
be forced to think about alternatives," he said, adding that those
alternatives would not be able to solve the issue completely but that
Turkey can no longer accept the "unfair" embargoes imposed on the KKTC.
Not zero-sum game Davutoglu does not see Russia as a power competing
with Turkey but rather as an important neighbor with which Turkey has
a $38 billion trade volume. "This is not a zero- sum game. … Just
because we are improving relations with the EU, that does not mean
we are weakening our ties with Russia." He said that Moscow backs
Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and is playing a positive role in
contributing to the dialogue between the Azerbaijani and Armenian
leaders. "The upcoming visit by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
to Turkey will be very important in our relations," he underlined.
Davutoglu also announced that Turkey expects positive developments
before the two countries’ soccer match in October in Turkey. He asked
for patience in obtaining results from the ongoing process, adding
that "the political will is still there and is very strong." Stressing
that the status quo is simply not acceptable in the Caucasus, he said,
"Frozen conflicts are ticking time bombs ready to explode, as we saw
in the Georgian crisis last year."
He described the changing parameters of Turkish foreign policy,
from a policy of zero-problem relations to one of maximum cooperation
targeting increased welfare and benefiting everybody in an integrated
world.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress