VOL. XLVI
No 31
04
The Political Scene (04 August 2003)
Despite visits to the White House by the Palestinian and Israeli prime ministers, the “road map” to peace is well behind schedule and slowing down. An unexpected warming of relations between Ankara and Damascus will probably do little for Turkey’s frayed relations with the US. Iraq’s Governing Council has agreed on a rotating presidency.
Road Map Inches Forward
Both Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud 'Abbas and his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon have visited the White House (on 25 July and 29 July respectively) as the Americans try to push the two sides along the road to peace outlined in the international quartet’s map. The state of play so far is that on the Palestinian side militant groups such Hamas and Islamic Jihad have declared a three-month truce in the intifada, while the Israelis have released some 540 Palestinian prisoners (out of approximately 6,000 in Israeli jails), dismantled some largely symbolic settler “outposts” in the West Bank and removed road blocks near Ramallah and Hebron. Now each side is demanding that the other should go further before they do. Israel wants the Palestinians to dismantle the militant groups (which Mr ΄Abbas probably cannot so without starting a civil war). The Palestinians want the Israelis to release a lot more prisoners, halt all settlement activity and stop constructing their 245km security fence/wall through the West Bank. The latter is one of the few issue on which the Americans differ publicly from the Israelis, with President George Bush saying on 25 July that “I think the wall is a problem and I’ve discussed that with Ariel Sharon. It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank.” (Mr Sharon breezily dismissed Mr Bush’s objections by saying on 29 July that “the security fence will continue to be built with every effort to minimize the infringement on the daily life of the Palestinian population.) And of course Mr Bush was considerably more forceful and specific when it came to Palestinian obligations, saying on 29 July that “the Palestinian Authority must undertake sustained, targeted and effective operations to confront those engaged in terror and to dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.” He also said the next day that it was still “realistic” to expect a Palestinian state to be established by the 2005 deadline in the roadmap and that “I think we’re making pretty good progress in a short period of time.” But in fact it looks as if the road map is running badly behind schedule – for example, it envisages the “possible creation of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders in 2003” – as the two sides drag their feet.
Syria And Turkey Move Closer
As the Americans cast around for help in pacifying Iraq, one obvious potential supplier of peacekeeping forces is neighboring NATO ally Turkey, and after meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in Washington on 24 July, US Secretary of State Colin Powell confirmed that the US has asked Turkey to send troops to Iraq, and that “the minister’s government have not had time yet to fully analyze the request, but he assured me that it is under the most active consideration. I am pleased that the minister indicated that that they would be working on this in as fast a manner as possible.” But once back in Ankara on 28 July, Mr Gul opined that “parliament’s permission should be obtained if the troops are to be sent,” adding that “it could happen in the medium term, it could take several months.” What Mr Gul did not say – but the Americans must know anyway – is that it is also possible that parliament will reject the American request, as it did when the US asked to stage troops through Turkey before the invasion of Iraq. In other words, seeking parliamentary approval may be just a Turkish delaying tactic or even a polite way of turning the Americans down.
If so, it will do little for relations between the two countries, already at low ebb due to Turkey’s refusal of the US request to use its territory and facilities and the arrest and detention by the Americans of Turkish special forces in Sulaimaniya last month. Nor will the recent warming of relations between Turkey and Syria – a country only millimeters away from inclusion in the Bush administration’s axis of evil – which culminated in the 29 July visit to Ankara of Syrian Prime Minister Mustafa Miro, the first such visit since 1986. Before arriving in Turkey, Mr Miro suggested to the Turkish daily Sabah that Syria, Turkey and Iran should make common cause to fight American plans for the region, saying that “the whole world knows about America’s policy to establish a new order in the Middle East. Therefore I think Turkey, Syria and Iran as well as other countries need to act more and more together, because if we stay alone it becomes easier to do what has been done to Iraq.” The very fact that Mr Miro could openly propose such a common front is one indication of the parlous state of US-Turkish relations. And the warm reception he received in Ankara, where Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on 29 July that Turkey and Syria are determined to step up cooperation “in each and every realm,” suggests that American attempts to dictate Ankara’s policy towards its neighbors – such as deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz’s statement in May that “anything Turkey does with Syria or does with Iran should fit into an overall policy with us of getting those countries to change their bad behavior” – may actually be counter-productive.
Governing Council Decides On Presidency
It is either a sign of lively democratic instincts or of chronic fractiousness that after two weeks of wrangling Iraq’s interim Governing Council resolved the question of its leadership on 29 July by appointing no less than nine of its 25 members to a presidency that will rotate on a monthly basis. But at least it can be said that the collective leadership, which comprises 5 Shi'as, 2 Sunnis and 2 Kurds, accurately reflects the country’s ethnic and religious make-up. The Council also decided that the presidency would rotate in alphabetical order, meaning that first up is the spokesman for the Shi'a party Da'wa, Ibrahim Ja'fari. Having decided on a leadership structure, the Council will now presumably move on to substantive issues such as the appointment of ministers and a
body to draw up the constitution. Under the present plans of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the constitution will then be submitted to a referendum, after which national elections will be held – and according to the head of the CPA, Paul Bremer, “it is certainly not unrealistic to think that we could have elections by mid-year 2004.”
Charles Snow