Turkish troops are pursuing the Kurdish rebels like cruel hounds, and the occupying forces who are not less wolves are trying their level best to protect their share. Share? You might be surprised for sure. While I say share, the reference is for Oil. So, the hounds and the wolves are fighting for the share of meat which either of the two wants to possess maximum. For that matter, the battle ground now-a-days is northern Iraq and peace talks in Istanbul are nothing more than searching for a piece of meat in the eagle’s nest.
Iraq is set to be at the top of the agenda in the ongoing high-level conference being held in the picturesque ancient Turkish city of Istanbul. It remains to be seen whether this whirlwind summit provides some positive outlook into many of the seemingly irreparable issues of the region or just another showpiece event having no end result.
The importance of the conference cannot be denied, though, as the presence of high-profile regional and world players is a clear proof that the world is concerned about the situation in Iraq and the rising tensions between Ankara and Baghdad over the Kurdish issue. Apart from the Iraq issue, small, yet, critical regional issues are also being discussed in the summit. Many analysts have labeled this summit as the test of US diplomacy in avoiding further bloodshed in the region.
The United States has lost a lot of credibility in the middle-east since the Iraq invasion and due to some of the administrative policies following the invasion. As a result this particular summit provides Washington with a chance to redeem itself and show the people of the region that it cares about their plight.
Coming back to the situation in Iraq, there is an unusual reduction of violence in the country and so it is of utmost interest on the part of both the Americans and the Iraqi leaders to persuade the Turks, through this conference, not to carry out any major incursions into northern Iraq to pursue Kurdish rebels, which in turn would destabilize the region further.
It’s a clear strategy by Washington to engage Ankara in diplomatic rounds in order to diffuse the tension. At a time when the Iraqi government is considering declaring a conditional amnesty to some of the insurgency groups to further improve the situation in the country, any conflict in the relatively stable north could easily spread elsewhere in Iraq.
But to prevent Turkey going ahead with its planned incursion, Ankara must be assured (of course followed by results) by Washington and Baghdad that the Kurdish rebels would be aggressively reigned in by existing coalition and Iraqi governmental forces to stop PKK attacks on Turkish soil.
It is in the interest of the world leaders to work for a permanent stability of a region (middle-east), from where the bulk of the world’s gas and oil resources come from. Both global prosperity and American national security depend on the US foreign policy toward the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf region. There is just no room for any sort of neglect in the region.
It will be interesting to watch the result of this global summit and one certainly hopes that this is not one of those earlier irrelevant summits, particularly when the plight of so many innocent people is at stake.
Link: Yahoo
Image Link: Middleeast Times
