The statements of Wolfowitz this time were less diplomatic than ever. He said that the issue of Washington’s cooperation with Ankara is out of question unless the Turkish authorities admit they were wrong refusing to support the British-American coalition. Moreover, he accused the Turkish authorities of holding separate negotiations with Saddam. He noted that this traitorous position has complicated the liberation of Iraq from the dictator. Wolfowitz also expressed his dissatisfaction with behavior of Turkish generals, which according to him, did not demonstrate principality and did not make the necessary pressure over the country’s government. ”As a result, the Turkish people suffer losses”. According to him, the government does not even imagine what it has condemned its people to by refusing to support America.
Wolfowitz did not say anything about the forms of the pressure to be put upon Ankara. But he hinted that the expediency of the further keeping of the American military base, Injerlik, located in the south of Anatolia should be discussed. He said that the decision to remove the base was not yet adopted in Pentagon, but its arsenals would be significantly lightened in the nearest future. ”It is planned to bring to the minimum the American military presence in Turkey,” the General said.
Paul Wolfowitz also made it clear that Ankara would be deprived of the mechanisms of influencing the process of formation of a new state structure of Iraq. This means that the Kurdish self-governance in the north of Iraq will continue to create problems for Ankara. Now it is evident that the Turkmens – who are ethnically close to the Turks – living in the North of Iraq, will not be among the main political forces of the country, which essentially will restrict the influence of Ankara on the events taking place in the region. Turkey will not have an access to the richest oilfields in the Iraqi Kurdistan. And of course, the world community will not agree to discuss once again the issue of the territories of Mosul and Kirkuk, once belonging to the Ottoman Empire.
The statements of Wolfowitz will undoubtedly become a signal for the anti-Turkish forces in Congress who are waiting for an occasion to start a campaign aimed at including the so-called ”Armenian resolution” in the agenda. We shall remind that in early April Congressmen George Radanovich and Adam Schiff submitted to the consideration of their colleagues a document supposing an indirect recognition of the fact of the Genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Turkey. This is a lighter version of the draft law excluded three years ago from the agenda of the House of Representatives. However, if it passes, it will be like a catastrophe for Ankara. There are enough bases to think that this catastrophe is not far away.
