news.am, Armenia
Dec 30 2009

Ankara does not threaten anyone any more: Hurriyet

14:03 / 12/30/2009`After using armed forces in Cyprus and claiming an
important part of the island, after the ASALA &`terror organization’
raised the Armenian issue and on top of that when the PKK again
violently brought up the Kurdish issue, Turkey trusted to employ its
weapon force whenever necessary and became a country that believed as
its military became stronger it could make others accept its request
the better,’ Turkish Hurriyet reads. NEWS.am posts the passages.

he daily comments on the foreign policy of recent 40 years revealing
its metamorphosis and course change.

`We did whatever Washington said. Let’s first look at international
issues. In the 1970 and 80s, to some extent in the 90s regarding
applications in international politics Turkey would keep an eye out
for Washington. The Cold War split the world in two, the good (Western
camp) and the bad (the communist bloc). Whatever they’d do they’d
oppose, whatever we’d do they’d applaud. To tell the truth things were
much easier and simpler back then. International crises were not too
much of a concern of Ankara. It would wait for a sign of the camp
leader Washington and act accordingly. Ankara’s tranquility was for
the first time disturbed by Cyprus in 1974. It did neither pay
attention to Palestine nor to regional issues nor to issues of other
Muslim countries. Turkey was only interested in Cyprus.

This situation has changed since the 90s. Until the 2000s, Turkey
seemed to only solve its domestic problems, and issues with regional
countries like Cyprus, Greece, Syria, Armenia and Iraq with force of
weapons.

Presently the general attitude and methods for solving crises have
completely changed.

Of course the international environment has changed as well. Presently
force is not that much used. The international balance is different.
But despite all, Ankara’s attitude toward its domestic and
international problems is very different. Now there are no more
fights, no escalation of crises and no weapon force. On the contrary
there is dialogue and an effort to understand each other.The most
important thing is that Ankara does not threaten anyone any more.’

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress