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Radikal: Iran and Iraq concern us closely
"When I spoke to Ahmet Davutoglu back in 2004, before he became foreign minister, he told me that Turkey was surrounded by problems and mentioned his 'zero problem' strategy. He stressed that these problems should be solved as soon as possible. In the years since, Turkey has been successful in its 'zero problem' policy – without making great concessions – thanks to the efforts of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul (in that post and as foreign minister), and also Davutoglu. But the chaos in the Middle East obviously won't calm down just through Turkey's good will and successful foreign policy, because most of the world's oil resources are in this region.
"Iran and Turkey have thousands of years of historical links with each other. The territory where Iran is now located was our common geography for millennia. Besides the values that we share, more than half of the Iranian population of nearly 70 million is made up of Azeris and other Turkic elements. So problems in Iran truly do concern Turkey.
"As for the recent elections, holding elections in Iran's 'Islamic Republic' doesn't mean the country actually has a democratic system. The honesty of these elections is always questionable. What's actually important in Iran is that the nation's will as revealed in elections isn't final and that religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and various institutions have the last word.
"Furthermore, a religious council of ayatollahs was established. But the worst thing is that an anti-democratic institution called the Guardian Council of the Constitution exists. This is like a debased form of our Constitutional Court. It's not easy to get a moderate, democratic regime under such conditions. Efforts were made to oppress the very popular movement of Mir Hossein Mousavi, first through electoral tricks and then violence. If this movement is silenced, it would help if Turkey makes efforts to promote democratization in Iran.
"Nearly 70 Turkmen lost their lives in recent bomb attacks in Kirkuk. Turkey cannot stay silent in the fact of these attacks and try to fulfill its responsibilities through humanitarian aid alone. These attacks are related to the Kurdish peshmerga administration (in northern Iraq), which is pursuing ethnic cleansing. Turkey should be more active at least on the Turkmen issue."
Source: Radikal (Turkey), Op-Ed by Hasan Celal Guzel, June 23, 2009
Posted at: 2009-06-24
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