Yusuf Kanlı

Did Turkey really give Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen the thumbs up to head NATO? This is a question, particularly those from Denmark and the United States, are asking their Turkish journalist colleagues since the “we do not have any attitude against the prime minister (Rasmussen) or anyone else on that matter. He is one of the most important and one of the most successful prime ministers in Europe” statement of President Abdullah Gül in Brussels last Friday.

Back in Ankara the same evening, however, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told newsmen that “A very serious reaction emerged in countries with Muslim populations during the cartoon crisis. Now these countries have started to call us and tell us not to allow it.” What Erdoğan was referring to was the 2005 publication by Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper of a set of cartoons of a man said to be Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, including one wearing a bomb-shaped turban and another showing him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women. At the time, Rasmussen had refused to meet the ambassadors of several Muslim countries, including Turkey, to discuss the crisis, defending the blasphemous drawings as freedom of expression and that it was up to the newspaper that published the cartoons not the Danish state to evaluate whether or not there was a need to make an apology to the Muslim people. Consequently violent demonstrations took place in many Islamic countries. Thank God, at the time protests in Turkey were non-violent. Erdoğan also disclosed that recently he spoke on the phone with Rasmussen and during the lengthy conversation: “I told him about the annoyance of the public... I told him he can appreciate what that means.”

Which of these statements was reflective of Turkey’s position on the possible candidacy of Rasmussen for the top NATO post, which will be vacated at the end of July by Holland’s Jaap de Hoop Scheffer? Was Gül indeed saying that Turkey has dropped its objection to the possible candidacy of Rasmussen? Or, was Erdoğan sending a message to Washington and NATO heavyweights Britain, France and Germany, who are believed to be favoring Rasmussen as the next NATO secretary-general, that Ankara continued its opposition and perhaps would use its veto right for the first time in the history of the alliance by any member state, should the Danish premier run for the post?

Roj TV issue
In private, however, Turkish senior officials were stressing in private talks with journalists that Rasmussen’s candidacy would be unwelcome for Turkey because of a far more important reason than the attitude of the Danish premier during the 2005 cartoons crisis. “How would a premier who despite all Turkish requests did not cooperate with Turkey in the fight against terrorism can become the secretary-general of an alliance which apart from other duties is involved in the fight against terrorism?” asked one official reflecting Ankara’s real concern about the possible candidacy of Rasmussen.

Indeed in the Friday evening talk with newsmen, Erdoğan clearly stressed that dimension as well saying for the past four years Rasmussen did nothing tangible to bring an end to the broadcasts of the Denmark-based Roj TV that Ankara complains has been making propaganda of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK gang which is as well on the European Union’s terrorist organizations list. “We are seriously disturbed,” Erdoğan underlined. Denmark, however, has been stressing that it could close down the Roj TV only if rather than making complaints Ankara provided “concrete evidence” of the link between PKK and the TV station. Still, perhaps to soothe Turkey’s concerns that as NATO secretary-general Rasmussen would not cooperate sufficiently in the fight against terrorism, the Danish premier is reportedly dispatching to Ankara nowadays a team of prosecutors for talks with their Turkish colleagues. Will that move satisfy Ankara? Most probably not unless Rasmussen gives in to Turkish demands and close down the Roj TV. That appears unrealistic either.

Thus, Ankara may come under pressure of the U.S. and some other allies, Gül might be willing to accept Rasmussen’s candidacy but Erdoğan will not budge on this issue and if needed will not hesitate vetoing Rasmussen and winning some more allies in the Muslim world.
Just a matter of mentality!

How will the March 29 elections be remembered in the future? I can hear comments by some stressing that Sunday’s polls will be remembered in the years ahead with photographs of the citizen in the southeastern Anatolian Tunceli city climbing to his uphill slum without running water and electricity with a dishwasher, oven or refrigerator on his back. Or, perhaps with the photographs of the "Tunceli refrigerators on sale" placards at Istanbul’s Tahtakale spot market. Naturally, people might have different opinions.  

Some would say live-broadcast orders of the chief executive to the governors that they should personally shovel free coal to the doorstep of "needy citizens"; some others would say nourishing a beggar culture in the country through the awkward, "It is a requirement of our religion to distribute alms" statement of a tall and angry man legitimizing and institutionalizing election bribery for the first time in the electoral history of this country would be remembered in the years ahead as "peculiarities" of the March 29 polls.

The systematic and massive exploitation of the public means, including government agencies, official vehicles and planes would not perhaps be remembered as the most important element of the Sunday’s polls. Did the chief executive and his men leave any road, public housing project, public lavatory not inaugurated during this election campaign even if they might have been opened to service 10 times over the past years? But, since services to the nation are not covered by the election bans, who can stop the chief executive from distributing keys of the unfinished houses constructed by the Public Housing Agency? Thus, key presentation ceremonies were converted to free-of-charge election rallies of the chief executive and his gang of merry men!

Rescue fiasco
Still, I do not believe the March 29 polls will be recalled with any of these in the years ahead. Most probably, talking with his/her grandchildren several decades later, most of the mayors or local assembly members who will be elected this Sunday, will say "I was elected in the elections when Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu and his friends were frozen to death on the mountain after their helicopter crushed and because of the primitive rescue capability of our country they could not be found and rescued."

Is it not incredible? This country has several satellites. It has many mobile telephone networks covering the entire country, even the remotest mountain peaks on the Iraq border. Our telecommunications network is so advanced that our benevolent government’s skillful eavesdroppers are listening to conversations of all our people, learning about their problems and providing efficient remedies (!).

Are not we reading the masterpieces of Ergenekon prosecutors how coups were prevented in our country thanks to the advanced listening capabilities of our modern police state?

Still, although immediately after the crash İsmail Güneş, the Ihlas news agency correspondent, one of the people on board the crashed helicopter, phoned the emergency help service and for 20 minutes he was held on the line to detect his location, after two days, despite search and rescue efforts were held by some 3,500 people, including soldiers, seven helicopters, Yazicioğlu and five other people accompanying him could not be found for more than 45 hours.

Was Hurriyet’s eminent writer Bekir Coşkun wrong in asking how it happened that the state who could detect where and when a general "farted," could not find the wreckage? Was it because all the capabilities of the state were allocated to hunting the Ergenekon "gang"?

Was it not interesting that while despite all its means the state could not find the wreckage, but some amateur wireless operators from the Malatya branch of the Wireless and Radio Amateurs Association found the wreckage?

Yes, Turkey is united in grief, but who killed, after all, Yazıcıoğlu and other people onboard the doomed chopper?

Sunday’s polls will definitely be remembered with the tragic death of Yazıcıoğlu!

The power-obsessed prime minister of 1950s Turkey was telling his deputies that national will was above all other powers and since the ruling party received the highest vote in the election and was given the duty and privilege of administering the country on its own, if the ruling party majority in Parliament wanted to reintroduce caliphate, since they have the required majority in Parliament, thus the legislative power, they could do it. The nation was polarized at the time. There was a "Vatan Cephesi" or the "Country Front" composed of people "loyal" to the "absolute ruler" and the "absolutely powerful" ruling party. There was an opposition persecuted by a makeshift parliamentary inquisition mechanism. It was a daring task to criticize the "absolutely powerful" administration.

Turkey, unfortunately, could not overcome at the time that acute "power obsession" condition of the ruling party, the prime minister and the president through democratic means. One day, some people in uniform decided to blow the whistle, ordered a halt to democracy, gathered a special tribunal and after a lengthy mockery trial difficult to reconcile with the notion of justice, condemned the president, the prime minister and two ministers to death. The president was later saved because of his advanced age, but the premier and his two ministers were executed. Though decades later Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan were posthumously honored by the Turkish state and they were declared by the nation as "martyrs of democracy" what Turkey lived in 1960 was an immense trauma the effects of which can still be felt in Turkish political life.

With tears in his eyes, "I may commit suicide" words poured out of the mouth of one of the most eminent anchormen of the country Wednesday evening after reporting allegations in the just-released new thriller, or the second indictment of the so-called Ergenekon "gang" case, that his wife had made several trips "alone" to Brazil and that there were some photographs of her. "It is as if my honor was fired at... If you are insulted by someone, you go to court. If you are insulted by a court, where can you go?" the anchorman revolted.

Aim at critics! Fire!

Apparently those claims were "discovered" by the prosecutors of the Ergenekon case while examining the personal computer of Turhan Çömez, a former Justice and Development Party, or AKP, deputy and one of the suspects of the second Ergenekon case who is presently attending a language course in London and could not be "captured" yet. Were the claims verified?

On the contrary, such claims were made years ago and were proved to have been fabricated by some people to prevent the anchorman from investigating further some alleged corrupt deals of the husband of the prime minister of the time. Why then such claims that were proven wrong were included in the new thriller by the prosecutor? Creative writing? Or, are we faced with yet another attempt to kill the reputation of a prominent critic? Is it rational, except perhaps at some banana republics, to think judiciary might be employed by the political administration to kill reputation of its adversaries?

Is it possible in any democracy that respects supremacy of law, equality of all in front of law, rights of the individual and such norms that constitute the sine qua non of democratic governance to have several thousand pages of charges based on alleged telephone conversations, files allegedly recovered on computers of the accused and testimonies of some secret witnesses but no hard evidence? Where on earth in any democracy an alleged consideration to undertake an illegal action can be considered a crime unless such considerations were put into action? Is opposing a government or even saying you wish to see it toppled a crime? Murder is a crime, but how many husband or wives might have considered undertaking such a crime in the height of hot discussions with their partners? Should we send behind bars all husbands and wives?

Even the arch foes of the AKP government in Turkey do not want to see any new "martyrs of democracy." We have to find a way from the current AKP mess through democracy and democratic means.

The 13th High Criminal Court decided Wednesday to accept the second indictment, or the new thriller, in the so-called Ergenekon "terror gang" case. The 1,909-page document, comprising five sections, constitutes the second step of the campaign of putting whatever criminal action committed in the country over the past decades into one huge Ergenekon basket. According to the court verdict on the new thriller, retired Gens. Şener Eruygur, Hurşit Tolon and Levent Ersöz; Cumhuriyet newspaper’s Ankara representative, Mustafa Balbay; journalist Tuncay Özkan; former police special forces chief Adil Serdar Saçan; Ferda Paksüt, the wife of Constitutional Court judge Osman Paksüt; strategist-writer Erol Mütercimler; former Justice and Development Party, or AKP, deputy Turhan Çömez; Ankara Chamber of Commerce chief Sinan Aygün; and scores of other people are accused of establishing a gang with the aim and intention of toppling the elected government of the country and annihilating the Turkish Parliament or being member of such a gang. The new case will start on July 20.

The first part of the new thriller is a summary of the first thriller, or the indictment. The new document charges that the "gang" tried to topple Republican People’s Party, or CHP, leader Deniz Baykal and the top executives of that party. The "gang" is also accused of attempting to divide the AKP, as well as the opposition Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP. It charges that the republican rallies before the July 22, 2007, elections were condemned as actions aimed at provoking the masses and preparing grounds for a military coup. As was the case in the first thriller, or indictment, almost all charges were based on telephone decoding and allegations by some "deep throats" or "secret witnesses."

While already the total pages of Ergenekon thrillers or indictments have exceeded 4,500 pages and likely will be added several thousand more pages when new chapters are added to the existing ones, confusion remains on what indeed is the Ergenekon trial, where it starts and where the accusations will end. Will the prosecutors ever introduce some hard evidence?

Talat’s trip to the US

It appears that the United States has given in to pressure from the Greek lobby in Washington. Even if the invitation to Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat to visit the U.S. capital and meet with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is not put off all together, it is highly possible that it will not come as early as expected.

According to Talat, his office was approached by Clinton’s office "through diplomatic channels" a while ago and was told that Clinton was willing to invite him for a meeting in Washington and that March 30 was a convenient date for the U.S. secretary of state. Talat’s office reported back that March 30 was convenient for the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Then, this communication somehow leaked to the media, the Greek Cypriot lobby in Washington started pressuring both President Barrack Hussein Obama and Clinton and tried to prevent such a meeting. The U.S. embassy in southern Nicosia has not yet officially invited Talat to Washington despite the tentative accord that the president and the secretary of state are both available for a March 30 meeting. Now, there are reports coming out from Washington that Clinton will first have a meeting with Marcos Kyprianou, the Greek Cypriot foreign minister, on the sidelines of a EU-U.S. summit to be held in Prague when Obama visits the Czech capital next week and then she will meet with Talat in Washington sometime in April.

The Clinton invitation to Talat was important because it implied the United States was preparing to use the "stick" portion of a new "carrot and stick" approach on Cyprus to prod a federal resolution on the island. Now, if the Talat visit is postponed because of Greek pressure, which appears so, then the "stick" the United States might have used on the Greek Cypriot side to energize them for a compromise solution on the island could be considered broken.

Why should Greek Cypriot leadership compromise and agree to share power with Turkish Cypriots if it already has everything a settlement could provide and it would not lose anything if the problem remained unresolved?

Many people thought the prime minister was making a joke when he declared a while back that yelling was a form of elocution. But he was not, and indeed has since proved that he is a master of that particular form of oration - a true "yellator"! Erdoğan has been yelling at those who either challenge his absolute leadership or refuse to give him their allegiance. He was rather happy seeing, splashed on the front pages of the media in allegiance to him and his Justice and Development Party, or AKP, reports on the so-called Ergenekon case, including testimonies of the suspects and bits and pieces from the indictment and the volumes of alleged supporting evidence. He did not utter a word against nor question the conformity to laws or to morality of the people being tried and judged on the front pages of the country’s newspapers before they were even officially accused.

But Erdoğan is very angry nowadays... So angry that he has reached the peak of his "yellatory" skills. He is on the TV every evening, "yellatoring" against those who deny him their allegiance and talk about corruption in AKP’s hierarchy, the Islamist Lighthouse charity fund scam or the scandalous deals in some municipalities headed by AKP mayors...

How could he avoid getting angry? The non-obedient media has been reporting about the financial crisis, publishing analysis by prominent economists who warn that while the government might succeed in "postponing" the impacts of the crisis hitting ordinary Turks, after the local elections Turkey will have to pay heavily for its delayed action against this devastating calamity.

Already, Turkey has become a world champion in unemployment and soon will become the leader of the "league of nations in poverty" because Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the First, the undisputed sultan of the country, decided the crisis would bypass Turkey and only the enterprises and businesses administered by incapable bosses would collapse.

With corruption at ever-higher levels, misuse of offices to provide lucrative deals to friends, relatives and people formerly convicted on charges of Islamism, the economy going astray and Turks being condemned again to unemployment, poverty and worse, the patience of the most gracious sultan has grown thin; he is trying to silence his critics through oppressive methods of all sorts, turning the country into a land of prohibitions. Still, there are critics writing on corruption, poverty and nepotism in governance.

How could he tolerate such talk, which underscores not only the failure of Erdoğan and his government to live up to their 2002 pledge of fighting corruption, misuse of office, nepotism and such, but highlights an intensification of such crimes in the country under his and his party’s governance? The prime minister is thus very angry, "yellatoring" around in hopes of scaring and silencing the non-allegiant media and avoiding having all that dirty laundry of the AKP exposed further to the Turkish public.

Failed pledges

But is Erdoğan not the prime minister who has been promising the nation, from his first days in office in 2003, that Turkey would diligently fight against corruption, poverty and prohibitions, the so-called "Three Ys" ("yolsuzluk," "yoksulluk" and "yasaklar" in Turkish)? Was he not the person who pledged that in his party and government no one could "erase the rights of orphans and stay on"?

Are we wrong if we say that rather than "yellatoring" at critics, the prime minister should try to question where he has made a mistake? To realize that this polarization of the nation that some of his adulators have been working day and night to create for reasons difficult for us to understand may eventually land his government and the country itself in a very awkward situation that we would not even wish to consider?

Are we wrong to expect our prime minister, rather than "yellatoring," to be concerned with where this country is indeed going if in the heart of Ankara, right in front of the Prime Ministry, a retired police officer can attempt suicide; if a father can kill his children, his wife and himself in an Ankara neighborhood; if the unemployment rate has reached a world-record level and indications show that there will not be any improvement any time soon?

President Abdullah Gül embarked on a long-overdue visit to neighboring Iraq on Monday. The two-day trip, the first by a Turkish president in 33 years, will not include any other Iraqi city except the capital, Baghdad, where Gül is expected to hold extensive talks with both President Jalal Talabani, an Iraqi Kurdish leader, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on a variety of issues, from cooperation on border security and the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, presence in Iraq to Turkey’s contributions to Baghdad after the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The visit comes after reports that Talabani and the United States government have been working behind the scenes with Ankara to convince PKK members to lay down their arms in exchange for some sort of an amnesty. Up until now, even the mention of the word "amnesty" had provoked strongly negative reactions in a Turkish society traumatized by PKK-related violence, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people since August 1984.

In recent remarks to the Turkish media, Talabani revealed that the PKK will be asked to give up "armed struggle" at an April conference of regional Kurds that will convene in the Iraqi city of Arbil. But he said that Turkey must also be prepared to accommodate itself to the reality that many separatists would not give up their arms. Members of the gang who were not directly involved with violence must be provided an opportunity to freely return to their families and resume a civilian life, Talabani suggested. The idea that PKK leaders could be resettled in a northern European country as been floated as well.

An arrangement for the "liquidation" of the PKK may not seem feasible to many Turkish terrorism experts, but it appears to be a must for the security of the Iraqi Kurdish region after the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Though it may sound paradoxical, after the U.S. withdrawal, only Turkey can offer security to Iraqi Kurds who might face serious challenge from both Sunni and Shiite Arab groups in Iraq. An impediment, indeed the most important one, for the progress of good relations between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurdish administration in northern Iraq has been the presence of PKK elements in that region. Thus, in order to get Turkish backing, Iraqi Kurds must cooperate with Ankara against the PKK presence in their territory. While skeptics of the idea say that Kurds should not be expected to harm Kurds, history shows that Ankara has been the most-trustworthy protector of the Iraqi Kurds at difficult times. After the first Gulf War, for example, Turkey not only turned down requests by Saddam Hussein’s regime to join its war on the Kurds, it provided a safe haven along its border for hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds when they were pursued by Hussein’s troops.

Kurds need Turkey & Turkey needs Kurds

In today’s Iraq, the Kurds enjoy unprecedented political clout because of their strong cooperation with the American presence in the country. But that same thing has been condemned by pro-independence Sunni and Shiite Arab elements as "collaboration with the enemy," making Kurds the target of hatred. After the withdrawal of American troops, can the central administration in Baghdad provide adequate security for the Iraqi Kurdish region? What can prevent Iraq from slipping into a civil war in which Iraqi Kurds and their oil-rich region will be the common target of the country’s Shiite and Sunni Arabs? It is obvious that in the period now emerging, Iraqi Kurds need Turkey far more than Turkey needs them.

Indeed, Talabani, also the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, has been acting very responsibly and statesmanlike in handling the problem at hand and has been actively working behind the scenes to achieve a historic peace between Ankara and the separatist Kurdish group as well as between Ankara, the central administration in Iraq, northern Iraqi Kurds and the United States.

But to what extend can Turkey prepare its people to the idea of an amnesty? Even more difficult, how can Turks be convinced that it is far better for Turkey to have a political PKK presence than an armed PKK up in the mountains? Still, as Gül recently said, Turkey may yet achieve some historic openings in dealing with its Kurdish population.

Nowadays there is a serious claim floating around in Ankara. Speculations cannot of course be taken very seriously, but if the speculation is about the probability of yet another closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, then it cannot be brushed aside so easily. I have read first about this new and rather surprising speculation from my friend Zübeyir Kındıra in his column in the Internet Haber news portal. Based on some "strong" sources and "rather well-founded information" Kındıra was writing that the speculation that a new closure case that might be filed against the ruling AKP in early summer has to be taken very seriously. Concentrating on the issue I soon discovered with surprise that indeed there was such widespread speculation among politicians that somehow escaped my attention.

Has the Office of the Chief Prosecutor of the Court of Appeals really started collecting evidence for a new demand for the closure of the AKP? Could there be a correlation between such a speculation and AKP’s declarations that immediately after the local polls this weekend it would concentrate on a comprehensive constitutional amendment package which would include clauses introducing the so-called Venice criteria for the closure of parties by the Constitutional Court? What would the introduction of the Venice criteria provide the AKP?

Office of the Chief Prosecutor, naturally, would not reveal even if there was such a preparation. Senior friends in the judiciary, on the other hand, were stressing that watching activities of political parties, gathering evidence of alleged violations of the Constitution and the laws on political parties are just among the duties of the Office of the Chief Prosecutor, though collection of such evidence did not necessarily mean the chief prosecutor will demand closure of a party. "That’s a routine activity of the Office of the Chief Prosecutor. For making a closure case against a party there must be sufficient and strong evidence. Is there sufficient and strong evidence against the AKP? No one can say anything before seeing the AKP file at the Chief Prosecutor’s office." But, why such a speculation started to float around just on the eve of the March 29 local polls? Is the AKP itself distributing such speculation in hopes that there would be a backlash in society in its favor and help the ruling party garner a higher percentage of votes in the local polls? While that might indeed be the case, playing such a dangerous tool may be very costly to the ruling party.

Boomerang?

Yes, last summer the Constitutional Court did not close down the AKP. But, is it not a fact that the AKP escaped closure because of the qualified vote requirement for closure of parties. Indeed, six of the 11 members of the court had voted for AKP’s closure but because seven votes were required for closure it escaped closure very narrowly. Furthermore, is it not a fact that the Constitutional Court decided with a 10 to one vote that the AKP was a focus of anti-secular activities? That is AKP was declared by the High Court as a "criminal party." If a new closure case is filed against the AKP and if that file contains sufficient evidence, will it be a far fetching assumption to think that the earlier verdict will make it very difficult for the AKP to escape a closure case this time? Would not new evidence that the AKP has been acting like a focus of anti-secular activity despite the earlier High Court’s "very strong warning" convince at least one of the five members hesitated to say "yes" to AKP’s closure last summer to join those who believed the AKP needed to be closed down?

Then, it becomes all the more meaningful why AKP people have started talking about a new comprehensive constitutional amendment package and introduction of the Venice criteria. While direct involvement of parties in violence will be required under the Venice criteria for closure of parties, the concept of individual responsibility will be introduced. That is rather than closing down parties, people accused of violating constitutional clauses and the law on political parties or elections will be held "responsible" and may be banished from politics if the changes Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been suggesting lately are to be legislated.

Thus, while trying to salvage his party, Erdoğan might be initiating a process which might boomerang and become very costly for his own political life. Well than, do we really face speculation about AKP’s closure or a building up of a new power struggle between Erdoğan and the tenant of the Çankaya presidential residence?

Ahead of the forthcoming visit of new U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama to Ankara and Istanbul between April 5 and 7, the American capital will be hosting an important guest from the eastern Mediterranean Island of Cyprus, Mehmet Ali Talat, the president of the Turkish Cypriot state. The visit of Talat will be of great importance. First of all, the Turkish Cypriot president will become one of the first senior foreign dignitaries to visit the American capital since the inauguration of the Obama administration last Jan. 20. Secondly, the visit will be taking place ahead of the visit to Turkey by Obama. As Cyprus will be one of the important items on the agenda of the Ankara and Istanbul meetings of Obama with Turkish leaders, the visit of Talat to Washington will thus provide him a golden opportunity of presenting his views on the Cyprus problem as well as the ongoing negotiations process between him and his Greek Cypriot counterpart, Demetris Christofias, for a resolution of the over four decades old problem of power sharing between the two peoples of the island and reuniting it in a federal, which unfortunately appears not advancing so well. Third, the visit will be taken at the invitation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Talat is scheduled to have a meeting with Clinton on the morning of March 30. Of course, Clinton will be meeting Talat as a "representative of the Turkish Cypriot community," that is with the title Talat has been attending the settlement talks with Christofias. Still, the invitation sparked strong irritation in the Greek Cypriot side, partly because of the strong pledge Clinton made during her Ankara visit earlier this month that the United States will work together with Turkey to bring an end to the international isolation of the Turkish Cypriot populated northern Cyprus.

A very strong message

Reports from Washington indicate that the Obama administration does not subscribe to the conviction that the Cyprus problem has become one of the chronic problems, a settlement of which is intractable. On the contrary, partly encouraged with the 2004 approval of a United Nations sponsored peace plan, or the so-called Annan Plan, by the Turkish Cypriot people and the strong political will in northern Cyprus since then for a settlement though the UN plan went down the drain because of the Greek Cypriot "Oxi" or "No" vote in the 2004 referenda, the Cyprus issue apparently placed by the Obama administration on the top of the list of "soluble important issues." Indeed, while there has been almost no progress on any of the major issues between the two sides in the talks that have been continuing for the past several months, international prominent advisers are working behind the scenes to help out Alexander Downer, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy on the island, to facilitate the talks with alternate suggestions on those hot potato issues and thus keep the process continuing. In contrast to the Annan Plan process and the direct interference of the then UN special envoy, Alvero de Soto, Downer has so far limited his participation to the process with one facilitating the process.

Talat, however, has been demanding the UN play a more active role in the process and has been declaring his readiness to accept the UN envoy play the role of arbitrator. He has been demanding a timetable for the process and stressing that he could accept the UN step in at a certain point and fill in the remaining gaps, as was the case during the Annan Plan process. Christofias rejects such probabilities and Downer is cool to Talat’s approaches saying the Annan Plan failed because of such interference and he would not repeat it. However, the Greek Cypriot leader does not appear willing to walk the road of reproaching to any of the key demands of the Turkish Cypriot people, like power sharing on the basis of political equality of the two peoples, partnership in sovereignty, partnership in sovereignty of the constituent states, without being prodded by the UN, or by some outside important power, such as the U.S..

On the other hand, despite their declared pro-settlement resolve in the 2004 referendum and despite all the pledges from the European Union and the United States, the continued isolation of the Turkish Cypriot people has led to a very strong frustration that may bring the end of the pro-talks government in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the coming April 19 parliamentary elections.

Clinton’s invitation, thus, might be a "life kiss" for Talat, his Republican Turks’ Party and the federal settlement hopes. Though I am afraid it came too late, better late than never.