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Demanding the Immediate resignation of
General Ralston as Special Envoy in Turkey
27.10.2006 |
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October 26, 2006 KNC - North America
On August 28, 2006, the US State Department
announced the appointment of former USAF General
Joseph Ralston as a "Special Envoy for countering
the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK).”
General Ralston is a vice-chairman of The Cohen
Group, a private lobby firm with close ties to the
American Turkish Council (ATC) and Lockheed Martin.
According to an article in the Washington Post in
May of this year, Lockheed Martin acknowledged it
was a client of The Cohen Group, and paid some
$500,000 to The Cohen Group for services rendered in
2005.
General Ralston is also a member of the 2006
Advisory Board of the ATC, as well as a current
member of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed Martin is also a member of the ATC.
Ralston's appointment came at a time when Turkey was
finalizing the sale of 30 new Lockheed Martin F-16
aircraft (approx. $3 billion) and as Turkey was due
to make a decision on the $10 billion purchase of
the new Lockheed Martin F-35 JSF aircraft. The sale
for the F-16's was approved by Congress in
mid-October and Turkey's decision in favor of the
F-35 JSF was announced on October 25, shortly after
Ralston's recent stay in Ankara, ostensibly to
counter the PKK. |
U.S Retired Gen. Joseph Ralston |
At the same time, a unilateral PKK ceasefire went
into effect on October 1, although it was rejected
by both the Washington and Ankara governments’ days
before it went into effect. This is in spite of the
fact that the PKK prefers to negotiate a political
settlement to the Kurdish question in Turkey, and
had indicated its willingness to do so repeatedly
over the last 13 years and, most recently, in
August, with demands that are fully consistent with
Turkey's EU accession criteria. Last week, during a
question-and-answer period after his address at a
meeting of the Eurasian Strategic Research Center (ASAM)
in Istanbul, General Ralston, as America's Special
Envoy, refused the possibility of applying an
IRA-type model to solve the issue of the PKK and the
wider Kurdish question in Turkey. General Ralston,
as an appointed official of the US government, has
indicated there is no possible peaceful, political
settlement on the horizon, a policy that goes
against the will of the Kurdish people.
Additionally, there continues to be a hostile
posture from the Turkish armed forces toward Iraqi
Kurdistan, the only peaceful portion of Iraq. In
early April, the Turkish army dramatically increased
its presence in the Kurdistan region of Turkey to
some 250,000-300,000 troops. Many of which were
concentrated along the border with Iraqi Kurdistan.
By the end of April, during Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice's visit to Ankara, hostile actions
against Iraqi Kurdistan began, ostensibly aimed at
alleged PKK camps. Attacks included bombings,
violations of Iraqi airspace, and infiltration of
Turkish special operations forces. To date, the main
targets of the Turkish military in Iraqi Kurdistan
have been unarmed civilian Kurds and livestock.
The decision to appoint Joseph Ralston, a former
military officer with widely-known links to the
defense industry, its lobby, and the Turkish lobby,
calls into question the sincerity of the American
administration in seeking a political solution to
the gross repression carried out against the Kurdish
people by the Turkish Republic. It also calls into
question the sincerity of the American
administration in seeking to establish democracy and
democratic values in the Middle East. Both of these
are magnified by the American and Turkish refusal to
seek a peaceful solution which the current ceasefire
affords.
By virtue of General Ralston's intimate connections
with the defense industry, and with the lobby group
of a foreign state that has so far shown itself
hostile to any democratic changes for the Kurdish
people within its borders, we consider the
appointment to be an example of an extreme conflict
of interest.
As such, we at the Kurdish National Congress of
North America demand the resignation of General
Ralston as Special Envoy to Turkey.
Kurdish National Congress of North America
knc@kncna.org
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan".
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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