Turkey sets upon a new track

1) Turkey’s Kurdish politics will change due to the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

2) The country’s economic parameters will be formed more clearly following the determination of the International Monetary Fund agreement which is agreed in principal.

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The withdrawal of United States soldiers from Iraq until the end of 2011 was already clear. Furthermore, Obama gained votes by promising to fulfill this withdrawal pledge one-year ahead of schedule. Therefore the withdrawal action should not be considered a surprise.

In this context, the fate of Kurds, or in other words, oil, is clearly the most important issue for the United States. To state it more obviously, who will protect the Kurds that cooperated with the invading U.S. forces during the Iraq war from the Arabs?

The U.S. administration has not a lot of choices at this point:

They can have a military base in the north, but this would not be sufficient.

They can leave protection of the Kurds and sustaining of general security to the control of the British forces, but can they trust this task to them?

They can delegate northern Iraq to Turkish protection.

I am not saying that this is what will happen… But I have heard that talk of the third choice being more seriously evaluated has reached Ankara. As far as I see, the pulse of Turkey is being taken regarding the proposal.

If Kurds came under Turkey’s protection; what would be the signals?

A contact would be established with Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdish regional administration in northern Iraq; as a matter of fact this has already happened.

The cleansing of northern Iraq of terrorists; the negotiations for cooperation against the terrorist PKK organization in the region continues as a result of this.

Let’s see how these two steps will be followed?

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The second incident that has changed Turkey’s course also took place at the weekend.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and the head of the IMF said they were close to a possible agreement.

Let’s list the possible affects of an IMF agreement on our daily lives:

The Turkish private sector is due to pay $52 billion foreign debt next year.

If the external conditions don’t worsen, we could refinance half this amount.

It would not be a bad move for the IMF to give $20 billion of the remaining $25 billion.

But it is very important that the agreement not be delayed long.

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But we should not suddenly relax as the road ahead is dotted with mines.