Hurriyet, Turkey
April 2 2010

The way of `thinking big’ in foreign policy¦

Friday, April 2, 2010
HASAN CEMAL

News keeps coming in one item after the other. First, the Turkish
ambassador to Stockholm goes back to work. And then the Turkish
ambassador to Washington is expected to be back to United States soon.
Apparently, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an has had a change of
heart and will attend the Nuclear Security Summit under U.S. President
Barack Obama.

Are these bad? No, not at all. If the news is a sign of better
relations between Turkey and Armenia; Turkey and U.S., it cannot be
bad news. Why should they? Better relations serve to all parties.

What is wrong here is that indexing relations to the so-called
Armenian `genocide’ allegations and leaving them hostage to the
Karabakh conflict. Of course there are different ways of thinking at
this point. But that doesn’t mean that communication among these three
countries should be sacrificed. This is wrong.

Sides can have problems. And some cannot be solved immediately and
take time. The important thing is to prevent poisoning the relations.
This is what we should do. The normalization of Turkish-American or
Turkish-Armenian relations cannot be tied to the so-called `genocide’
issue. It is likewise for the Karabakh question. And let’s not forget
the Cyprus conflict.

Turkey over the years had a very narrow maneuvering space in Cyprus
and had troubles in national politics as well. Now, please let’s not
create a second one with the Karabakh question or a Rauf DenktaÅ?
problem again! I am not saying that neither Cyprus nor Karabakh is
important. All I am saying is that both Turkey and Azerbaijan, without
doubt, have their own legitimate reasons. But none should be allowed
to create a setback for relations with Armenia, the U.S. and
Azerbaijan.

In other words: None of these problems should be a monkey on Turkey’s
back. We had plenty of examples in the past. But now we have to learn
from our past experiences. Let’s not overlook this:

Turkey is standing on completely different ground today. Several
issues shouldn’t tie Turkey’s hands; a country with such a remarkable
growth and development and quite different national interests today.
In this perspective, governing bodies as well as the political
establishment in Turkey must `think big.’ Besides, there is, should
not be, no way but to be creative for Turkish diplomacy.

Let’s stop being wordy. It is wrong to index Turkish-American
relations or Turkish-Armenian normalization to the so-called genocide
issue and the Karabakh conflict. The common interests of these four
countries, including Azerbaijan, do not lie in nationalistic show-offs
but sound, normal relations.

As I’ve said, we can live with some issues and leave solutions to
time. But at the same time, we can bring relations back to normal or
have better ties. This is the right thing to do.

Turkish ambassadors to Stockholm and Washington going back to office
and ErdoÄ?an attending the summit are hopefully signs of this
normalization.

* Mr. Hasan Cemal is a columnist for the daily Milliyet in which this
piece appeared Friday. It was translated into English by the Daily
News staff.