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Turkish PM's UK visit

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Turkish PM's UK visit, November 9, 2007

Normally one might not pay too much attention to the visit to the UK of a foreign Prime Minister, even one as significant as the Turkish Premier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks with Gordon Brown but there are so many factors regarding this visit that the visit deserves closer examination.

The two Prime Ministers covered a lot of ground. Turkish public opinion is highly inflamed following the continuing PKK terrorist activity and Erdogan was looking for a friendly ear as the Turks prepare for the possibility of significant military operations inside the north of Iraq in pursuit of the PKK bases. They seem to have found it in Mr Brown. Though Mr Brown did not want to been seen to publicly contradict the international voices calling for caution and restraint, signing a document which promotes 'strategic co-operation', particularly in regard to defence and the increased co-operation between the two countries in combating terrorism, at the very moment that Turkish forces are engaged in positioning themselves for an assault into northern Iraq looks pretty unambiguous.

To its credit, the British government does seem to appreciate the significance of Turkey. A powerful and democratic country with a growing economy and a relatively liberal society it could become a model for any number of muslim states in the region but will not be able to do so if the west drives its leaders away in frustration. So far the EU has been less than supportive. Indeed one could be forgiven for thinking only the British were actually supporting Turkey's accession. The US has turned a blind eye to PKK terrorism since it has, uniquely amongst the armed groups at work in Iraq, not been directed at American troops, and as a consequence American forces have left the Kurds to do more or less as they please. Unfortunately, what they please is resulting in continuing PKK cross border attacks on targets in south east Turkey and the Turks have had enough. American 'war on terror' looks rather selective in Ankara at the moment and relations are cooling as a result. Turks are saying that the Israelis don't suffer this sort of thing lying down so why should we?

Brown and Erdogan also had time to turn their attentions to northern Cyprus. The document signed also indicates bilateral co-operation on lifting the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots. Though her majesty's government have indicated before that this is current policy, remarkably little has been done. Perhaps now we are witnessing a little push directed at the Greek Cypriot administration. British policy has always been to promote the reunification of the island but frankly, after the Greek Cypriot referendum rejecting the UN plan in 2004, the intransigence of the south has made the goal look hopeless. Perhaps the tentative overtures are more for the government in south Nicosia to witness than anything for the Turkish Cypriots themselves. Only the possibility of the north moving, however slowly, towards recognition will stir the Greek Cypriots to make compromises.

Stirred the Greeks are too. Witness the summoning of British Ambassadors in south Nicosia and in Athens too. A scheduled London meeting on the third of November between Greek Cypriot Foreign minister Erato Kozakou Marcoulli and the British Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs has been cancelled. Government spokesman Vassilas Palmas stated that 'the climate formed makes (it) impossible even for the discussion of issues other than the Cypriot problem.' What really got the Greek goat was the reference, in a formal document, to the 'Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus', not the occupied areas, the north of the island or even the part of the island under Turkish Cypriot administration, but the TRNC. The Greek Cypriot government had a fit. It cannot have been an oversight. This was a prod, a wake up call to the south to engage meaningfully or see where the future might otherwise lie.

Predictably the administration of Tassos Papadopoulos reacted belligerently, issuing veiled threats in regard to British military bases on the island in an effort to recapture a control over events. Such bases are useful NATO assets too though with wider implications and Papadopoulos risks backing himself and his people into their final corner. Europe is tiring of the Cyprus problem. The first voices are breaking rank in the south too. An article appeared which suggested that the government's opportunistic support for the Kurds was causing unpleasant chickens to come home to roost. Loucas Charalambous, never a friend of Papadopoulos, wrote perhaps his most damning indictment of the Greek Cypriot electorate, in continuing to support a president who had failed so comprehensively to achieve anything at all in regard to the Cyprus problem, and who has been tainted so regularly with all sorts of controversies.

If Papadopoulos should be returned next year as president, realistic hopes of reunification may die with his re-election. If a new figure emerges then he will play the final hand whilst the world is still interested. If a settlement cannot be achieved, Turkey's growing influence may see a ripple of recognition, from Azerbaijan and Kygyzstan rolling slowly out across the region, through Syria and beyond. The Greek Cypriots' friends, exhausted by the intransigence of South Nicosia, will not resist the process with the vigour they would have previously mustered. One suspects that goes for Mr Brown too.

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