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ANKARA: Problem Solving

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  • ANKARA: Problem Solving

    Problem Solving
    BY GUNDUZ AKTAN

    Turkish Press
    May 5 2005

    RADIKAL - Our failure to solve the Armenian issue is considered as the
    failure of our foreign policy. People made the same comment about the
    Cyprus issue as well. Actually our Iraq policy, our relations with
    the US, our EU bid and Aegean issues can be mentioned in the same
    context. It's true that our foreign policy's problem-solving capacity
    isn't high. However, we can't separate this issue from our failure to
    solve problems, because we were the last to bring down our inflation,
    and such problems as traffic, taxes, roads and utilities, etc. still
    haven't been solved. Obviously, the fact that we entered democracy
    early had a role in the failure to solve these problems. Political
    parties chose not to deal with such problems which cannot be solved
    without disturbing the public. They were afraid of losing support in
    elections. As a result, almost all of the public made unlawfulness
    a normal way of life and the problems became permanent.

    Political powers, not used to solving problems in domestic politics,
    started to wait for the problems in foreign policy to solve
    themselves. What's more, foreign policy has its own problems. As
    each problem is a conflict with two sides, a solution doesn't
    only depend on us. If our rival resists solving the problem in our
    favor, then the conflict continues for a long period of time. In
    other words, a 'win-win' solution becomes impossible. In addition,
    economic interests don't prevent political conflicts. Maybe it's sad,
    but politics supercedes the economy in foreign policy. In conflicts
    with countries having one problem, it's more difficult for countries
    having multiple problems to protect their interests. For example,
    Turkey has a number of vital strategic problems, whereas Greek
    Cypriots only think of swallowing the island and Armenians think of
    making us accept the so-called genocide. It can't be denied that the
    most important weakness of our foreign policy comes from ourselves.
    Turkish foreign policy of the last 50 years always belittled its own
    power and considered others superior. We couldn't understand that
    we can accomplish nothing in foreign policy without taking risks,
    and it was difficult for us to seek help from others. Our foreign
    policy also has two other obstacles. Following World War II, Turkey
    was in the Western world, but the West couldn't overcome historical
    prejudices and didn't consider Turkey a Western country. Following
    the Cold War and during our EU membership process, this situation
    became clearer. If the West had been fair, would the Armenian issue
    be treated this way? Meanwhile, many 'liberal intellectuals' in Turkey
    claim that Turkey should do everything requested by the West in order
    to become Western. Western countries use these intellectuals' lack
    of identity. The number of academics dealing with foreign policy
    problems was very small. In addition, the number of lawyers and
    historians in the fields of genocide, terrorism and the rules of war
    is insufficient. As a nation, we also want conflicts to be solved
    immediately. We can't feel enmity over long periods. We shouldn't
    forget that solving conflicts in a short period of time requires
    making concessions.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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