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Terrorism on agenda as Iraq president visits Turkey |
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Written by The Financial Times
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Saturday, 08 March 2008 |
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Iraq's president arrived in Turkey for a working visit yesterday, a week after the Turkish army ended its controversial assault on PKK Kurdish separatists in the mountains of northern Iraq.
Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, is the first Iraqi head of state to visit Turkey since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The trip coincides with a growing impression among foreign diplomats in Ankara that the Turkish government is trying to extend its focus on Iraq away from the fight against terrorism and to engage more with Baghdad to ensure, among other things, that the country does not disintegrate.
A sizeable part of the Turkish security establishment, and perhaps also of public opinion, believes that Iraq's Kurds support the PKK and its separatist terror threat to Turkey, which has a large Kurdish population. So terrorism is high on the visit's agenda but Turkish officials were keen to stress that the the emphasis would be on diplomacy.
Still, it was not billed as a state visit and Mr Talabani did not get the red carpet treatment at Ankara airport on his arrival. Murat Ozcelik, Turkey's special representative for Iraq, nevertheless said: "Relations between Turkey and Iraq will gain a new momentum and we will now enter a period in which a new page will be turned."
Mr Talabani was invited by Abdullah Gul, Turkey's president. Mr Gul, who was previously the country's emollient foreign minister, has turned his office into a hive of diplomatic activity since being elected last August.
This follows a hiatus under his predecessor, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who spoke no English and did not play an active role in foreign policy. Mr Sezer was also much closer to the Turkish military, which has driven most of Turkey's policy towards Iraq.
Diplomats and commentators said the real significance of Mr Talabani's visit was that it showed Turkey and its government taking the opportunity to begin a sustained engagement with the Iraqi authorities.
Ankara has frequently chosen to ignore them since the invasion, believing that the future of Iraq lay in Washington. Yusuf Kanli, a commentator, wrote yesterday: "It was unfortunate that Turkey has failed to look at Iraq and Talabani's presidency with a wider perspective [of the] overall interests of our country rather than with a simple perception of [a] terrorist threat." That position may be undergoing a review. "They're starting to think that [Iraqi] policy up to now has not necessarily been helpful in advancing Turkey's interests in Iraq," a diplomat said. |
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