The latest stormy debate in Parliament revolves around a controversial bill envisaging the clearance and destruction of mines along the border with Syria by a private contractor who will then be allocated the cleared area for agricultural use. The bill has highlighted a conflict among so-called nationalists and liberals.
Arguments put forth by opposition parties stating that demining should be carried out by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) instead of contracting the work to foreign companies that would then be allowed to cultivate the demined land for up to 44 years sound reasonable but do not reflect reality.
The reality of the matter is what General Staff spokesperson Gen. Metin Gürak told the media last Friday; namely, that the TSK does not have the technological means to do the work. It may come as a surprise to many deputies, too, who last week stated that they would not have liked to believe that the TSK, the second largest army within NATO after the US, does not have the means to do the job. But this is the reality, as Gen. Gürak himself admitted.
In addition, Turkish opposition parties have centered their arguments about the bill on the issue of national interest and security, saying that contracting the work to a foreign firm would compromise the two.
The danger in the abovementioned arguments lies in the distortion of facts and thus leads to the failure to ask the right question: Why does the TSK not have the technology to do the demining work when its defense expenditures, at $20 to $25 billion per year, are so high?
This problematic mindset prevents Turkey from making the right diagnosis of its problems and putting together the correct recipe for a solution.
Similarly, Turkey has been hijacked by anachronistic nationalistic arguments when facing its other problems, such as the Kurdish question.
Speaking at a roundtable discussion hosted by the local NTV news station almost two weeks ago, former Ambassador İlter Türkmen said the unresolved status of the Kurdish problem stands as the biggest failure in the Turkish Republic's 86 years of history. The Kurdish question does not stand alone, however, as there are other areas which illustrate the republic's failures in resolving critical questions that have hindered and continue to hinder democracy from flourishing.
But on the Kurdish question, once a green light was given by the country's politically powerful TSK, opposition parties appear to be collaborating more with the government in a possible solution to the Kurdish question. In a rare move, a deputy from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) last week met with Ahmet Türk, the chairman of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which is represented in Parliament.
In my Dec. 27, 2007 column, I predicting that once Gen. İlker Başbuğ, then the Land Forces commander, became the new chief of general staff in August of last year, he could agree to a comprehensive package of measures to address the Kurdish problem. Indeed, Gen. Başbuğ hinted on many occasions, including in a long speech he made on April 14 of this year, the military's readiness to contribute to a solution to the decades-long Kurdish question.
I am not suggesting that problems will be resolved once consent is given by the TSK, but this is how the Turkish system functions -- the military-led staunchly secular bureaucrats have a strong say in internal and external political issues that should normally be solved by political authorities.
Nevertheless, no one knows, except the top leaders, what the package of measures being discussed to resolve the Kurdish dispute entails.
After President Abdullah Gül's remarks several months ago that “good things will happen on the Kurdish question,” Interior Minister Beşir Atalay's remarks, made to NTV last week, indicate that there may be light at the end of the tunnel in resolving the terror problem of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as well as the Kurdish question.
But, at the end of the day, a resolution to this problem will still be limited and remain unsatisfactory if the political leadership cannot cross the border drawn by the TSK.
