PULSE of TURKEY No:88 ............................ FEBRUARY 3rd, 1999
ECONOMIC RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA WILL BOOM, SAYS PM
High-level contacts will soon be made with Russia to work out joint economic measures to counter global financial crisis. Turkey will cooperate with the United States to solve the crisis with Iraq. Otherwise, says PM Ecevit, American policy is bound to end up in an independent Kurdish State.
PM Bülent Ecevit said that Turkey and Russia will jointly seek ways of transcending the current global financial crisis and that high-level contacts will take place to this end before long.In a televised interview on TRT Tuesday (2nd) evening, the Prime Minister stressed the importance for Turkey to have economic cooperation wýth Russýa because it was becoming an important market for Turkey. Turkish businessmen and contractors had become very successful in the Russian market. They had made big investments in that country. He said, “When this crisis, the economic crisis, was also transferred to Russia we, the previous government, began to devote attention to it. We deemed that in order to save our country from the impact of the crisis, to the extent that it is possible, we should make contributions to Russia for it to overcome the crisis as soon as possible. We are now working on ways of doing it.
When I became Prime Minister and got the vote of confidence I received the first cable of congratulations from PM Primakov. It was a very warm message. In my answer I said to Primakov that we should definitely review our economic cooperation and move it forward to more advanced points. So that our two countries are harmed less by the current global crisis, which is rocking the world, we should be in mutual solidarity, I told him.
We envisage making high-level contacts with Russia before long with special emphasis on economic topics.”
It was speculated in the media that PKK terrorist Abdullah Öcalan was in Russia yesterday, but the Russian Embassy denied the claim. PM Ecevit said that Öcalan could be in a place like Minsk, outside Russia, but close enough to be under Russian control, but this guess was not based on any information, he affirmed. It was just a guess.
Ecevit on crisis between Iraq and the United States
Asked about fresh American attacks on Iraq’s air defence installations in northern Iraq earlier in the day (2nd) PM Ecevit said:
“As you know, Saddam Hussein and his close colleagues expressly announced a few months ago that Iraq would no longer heed the American no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. He said these regions are their lands, they have sovereignty rights on these lands and they will shoot down foreign military aircarft flying in these zones. Thus he engaged in an atmosphere of defiance towards the United States. This was a golden opportunity for the United States because the Americans were awaiting excuses to hit Iraq from the air. Then putting forward some reasons such as the radar was locked onto my aircraft, they fired on me or I was forced to defend myself, the United States increased its attacks on Iraq. These reasons may be justified or somewhat exaggerated.
Now what will be the outcome of it all? As far as I know, it is unheard of to occupy a country with merely air attacks. If a result is to be obtained, the air attacks should be integrated with land operations after a while. But the United States is right not risking it. They have not forgotten the Vietnam experience. As for the Iraqis, they are a nation which is very fond of their independence. A land operation in Iraq may cause a lot of headaches for the Americans. Certainly, the United States would not be defeated, but it can suffer very big hardships and it may cause very big hardships for the region.
The United States has not yet defined a definite plan. It intends to finance Iraqi opposition groups so they can topple the Iraqi regime. It has, as you know, allotted a sum of $97 million for this purpose. But certain Kurdish groups, primarily Barzani and some Kurdish groups in Iran have refused to receive these funds. If they had received this aid they would have fallen into the position of traitors in the eyes of the great majority of the Iraqi people. They could not, rightly, bring themselves to receiving it. Only those small opposition groups in exile who no longer have anything to do with Iraq accepted the aid. And it was interesting that the commander of the American forces in the Gulf region openly said the other day that they could get nowhere by giving money to these opposition groups in Iraq. Not only the community, but the Administration is also quite open in America. With that openness the American commander in the region said that he did not take the aid business seriously.
And there is also another fact that straight after the Gulf War the United States overtly encouraged the Kurds in Iraq to rebel against Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. With the belief that the United States is behind them and that they could succeed in it they uprose. It caused great disasters for them and not only for them it also caused a great bother for us too, because hundreds of thousands of people fled into Turkey. Thus the American provocations and encouragement caused their plight. A few years later Iraq attempted to send some troops into the region and the United States rushed all their agents in the region out of the country. Under these conditions, it is not known how the United States will attain the goal of getting rid of the Saddam regime. In other words, it seems that the United States has not elaborated upon a policy on this issue. And I am not the only one who is saying it. The United States is an open community and the people interested in this question overtly criticise this lack of policy on the part of the American Administration. It is time the United States made a serious plan on this topic and we contributed to it, because we are a Middle Eastern country which has been the most affected by what is happening in Iraq.”
“American policy is bound to end up in an independent Kurdish State”
PM Minister Ecevit also said, “In my opinion Turkey took certain wrong steps during the Gulf War and in some regards these mistaken steps put it in the position of no return. It was obvious that the American policy would cause the division of Iraq and that Turkey would suffer the most from this division. And indeed that was exactly what happened. The United States may not be planning to found an independent Kurdish State, but the steps it is taking are inevitably heading for that target. Is it intentional on the part of the United States or not, I cannot tell, but the United States has long had certain ideas of its own on this topic.
For instance in 1965 I was invited to a seminar in America, at New York University on Turkey’s social questions. At that time I had just left the position of the Minister of Labour. I thought they had invited me for that reason and prepared a paper on social and labour questions. But none of the American experts who took part in the seminar were interested in Turkey’s social questions in that sense. They all kept on talking about the Kurdish question. Yet there was no such question in Turkey at that time. This means the Americans have always had the intention of using the Kurds for their aims in the Middle East. Does it go as far as wishing for an independent Kurdish State or not, I can’t tell. But the steps it is taking and what it asks of us are inevitably heading for that point. It is up to Turkey to prepare an official plan to forestall such an outcome.
As you know, we, the Democratic Left Party, prepared a plan about Iraq after surveys we carried out into this matter in 1996. And our plan was taken seriously by external quarters too. We are now revising it. There have been changes in the conditions. They have been hardened in some ways. We are revising them. The aim is not only to contribute to the formation of a clear-cut policy by the United States, but it also aims at influencing Iraq to change itself. This is because the Iraqi regime is an archaic regime. It is an archaic regime even by Middle Eastern standards. Just imagine, the rulers of the country, the government members hold their meetings in uniform with guns in their pockets, as we watch them on the TV. Such an appearance is not possible in this day and age. It is a country that has remained rather behind the age from the viewpoint of human rights.
In return, it has a big number of intellectuals and well educated technocrats. It is a country of high technological accumulation. I was very surprised when I went there during the Gulf crisis. They could repair in a very short time the installations and bridges that had been destroyed by bombardment. They did it all with their own personnel and their own technology. That is to say the Iraqi Administration is being unfair to its own people. It has very skilful people. That is why the present regime should be effectively reminded that it has to keep pace with the current world trend and open up to the external world in harmony. Our plan in 1996 was placing great emphasis on this point and it was reminding them that in today’s world nations are also getting interested in domestic affairs of other countries and telling them their mistakes. It is taken normally in this age and not regarded as interference in domestic affairs. That is why the situation should be rectified in Iraq too, not with weapons, but with policies. We must also make persistent suggestions to the Iraqi regime. I believe that they can get nowhere by being stubborn with the whole world in this day and age. Turkey has to do its best about it, naturally, without hurting the Iraqis’ pride.”
Answering questions PM Ecevit said that Turkey had begun to establish closer relations with the Arab countries, not as whole, but one by one. “Our relations with Egypt were promoted greatly recently. It is the same with Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and we even began to open up to the Gulf countries. We do not see the Arab world as a world in itself. The Arabs have always had serious differences among themselves. This is not the case only politically, but culturally too they have differences. The lifestyle of Jordan is much different from that of Saudi Arabia, for instance. Saudi Arabia’s understanding of Sheriat is much different from that of Libya.”
He said Syria had by and large kept its promises about dropping its support of the PKK. The PKK members had now gone from Syria to Iraq. Baghdad was in touch with them even though it was not systematic support of terrorists against Turkey, he said. uras@ada.net.tr, February 3rd, 1999