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Turkish Leader Spells Out More Vigorous
Role in Iraq
11.6.2005
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Turkey's prime minister, Recip Tayyip Erdogan, said
yesterday that while Iraq had become a "training
ground for terrorists" since the start of the war,
which Turkey opposed, he had confidence in Ibrahim
al-Jaafari, the Iraqi leader, and was helping him to
make Iraq a democracy.
"My impression with meeting Mr. Jaafari is that he
is very keen on achieving democracy in Iraq, he
really believes in democracy, and he asked for our
support, and we said we are ready to help in any way
with all our institutions," Mr. Erdogan said.
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Tayyip Erdogan
Photo: Internet |
Speaking in an interview with reporters and editors
at The New York Times, Mr. Erdogan said Turkey was
furnishing supplies, including food, fuel, water and
electricity, and had just extended by another year
the American military's use of the Incirlik Air
Base, 250 miles southeast of Ankara, for
replenishing supplies and refueling aircraft.
He also said Turkey was warily trying to exert
influence on Syria, with which it has had difficult
relations for four decades.
"Turkey cannot in any way approve of oppressive
regimes," Mr. Erdogan said, "and at this point there
is nothing Turkey can take as an example from Syria,
while there is lots that Syria can take as examples
from Turkey."
The two countries are sharing intelligence for the
first time and dismantling mines along their
600-mile border, he said, and Damascus is starting
to turn over information about fighters hiding in
Syria who belong to the Kurdistan Workers Party,
which is outlawed in Turkey.
"Of course, this was not the case until recently,"
Mr. Erdogan said, speaking through an interpreter.
"If Syria were to be harboring terrorists, then
Syria would be left alone in the world."
He said Turkey's primary concern was the
"territorial integrity" of Iraq - shorthand for
making sure that Kurds in northern Iraq do not break
with Baghdad and seek to join forces with Kurdish
separatists on the Turkish side of the border.
He said Turkey was paying close attention to the
evolving status of Kirkuk, an oil-rich northern
Iraqi city that is home to ethnic cousins of the
Turks known as Turkmens. "Kirkuk should belong to
all of Iraq, and anything to the contrary would be
repeating mistakes that Saddam Hussein made in the
past," he said. "We have to take care on that
point."
He said Turkey, a secular Muslim state, was trying
to project democracy throughout the Middle East, and
he quarreled with the notion that democracy and
Islam were incompatible. "Turkey has been able to
marry democratic culture with Islamic culture," he
said. "They can coexist."
"Some use the term 'Islamic democracy,' and we feel
this is wrong because it alludes to a theocratic
association which is not the way we see things," he
said. "That is why I put the emphasis on
coexistence, and this is in fact what we explain to
our friends in the Middle East."
Turkey's effort to join the European Union should be
seen in this light, he said. "We say that Turkey's
quest for membership should be considered in the
context of proving Huntington wrong," he said.
His reference was to a Harvard professor, Samuel P.
Huntington, who predicted in 1996 that cold-war
rivalries would be replaced by a "clash of
civilizations" between Islamic fundamentalism and
secular democracy.
"We see the E.U. as a club of common political
values, not as a Christian club," he said, "and the
world not one where there is a clash of
civilizations but a cooperation of civilizations."
Mr. Erdogan said he had asked Secretary General Kofi
Annan of the United Nations to revive his efforts to
restart talks on the reunification of Cyprus. The
island has been divided along ethnic lines since
Turkish troops invaded in 1974 to prevent an
Athens-backed coup aimed at uniting the island with
mainland Greece.
A plan advanced by Mr. Annan and favored by Turkey
and the Turkish Cypriots collapsed in April 2004
when Greek Cypriots rejected it in a referendum. The
Greek Cypriots then joined the European Union in the
name of the whole island. Mr. Erdogan complained
that this left the Turkish Cypriots powerless while
the Greek Cypriots were "rewarded" for
intransigence.
www.nytimes.com
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