![\"Newroz](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/wp130408067505.jpg\")
HAWRE MUHAMED \/ METROGRAPHY<\/p>\nBy Karl VickMarch 28<\/p>\n
HAWRE MUHAMED \/ METROGRAPHY<\/p>\n
Kurds celebrate Newroz in the PKK controlled area of Qandil in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan.<\/p>\n
A sandstorm was kicking up at Ben Gurion International midday last Friday, winds bad enough to cancel the departure ceremony for President Obama\u2019s winning trip to Israel. But in a sheet metal trailer on the tarmac, Obama was calming another storm, three years along and finally running out of bluster. In the box with him was his host, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Nentayahu.\u00a0 In Netanyahu\u2019s hand was a cell phone. And on the other end of the line was the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<\/p>\n
As arranged in advance by Obama and diplomats from all three countries, Bibi read out an official apology for the nine lives lost on the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara in May 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded the aid ship en route to breaking Israel\u2019s blockade on the Gaza Strip.\u00a0 Netanyahu\u2019s words, along with a promise to compensate survivors and continue to ease strictures on the Palestinian enclave, ended a diplomatic cleavage seated in sheer cussedness, and restored what one Israeli diplomat calls \u201cthe triangle\u201d \u2013 made up of the two most stable and prosperous democracies in the Middle East, and the superpower that needs them on the same side.<\/p>\n
If that was all that went Erdogan\u2019s way last week, he might have come in second to Obama, whose tour of Israel left the supposedly wary Jewish population something close to twitterpated.\u00a0 But Erdogan had already pulled off a diplomatic coup of his own \u2014 and just one day earlier:\u00a0 Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned head of the insurgent Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party, known by its intials in Turkish as the PKK, had agreed to end the country\u2019s bloody 29-year civil war and bring the Kurdish struggle into the realm of representative politics.\u00a0 In the space of two days, Erdogan \u2013 once jailed himself for an Islamist proclamation \u2013 had brought to life the foreign policy slogan of Turkey\u2019s modern founder, the rigorously secular Kemal Ataturk: \u201cPeace at home, peace abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
(MORE:\u00a0New Day for the Kurds: Will Ocalan\u2019s Declaration Bring Peace With Turkey?)<\/p>\n
The story of \u201cTurkey\u2019s Triumphs\u201d appears in this week\u2019s print edition of TIME, available to subscribers here.\u00a0 It lays out the implications for the American strategy in the Middle East of the tentative rapprochement between Jerusalem and Ankara \u2014 closely allied before Erdogan\u2019s rise to power.\u00a0 Burying the hatchet should pay off first for Washington in Syria, the country coming apart between Israel and Turkey.\u00a0\u00a0 Both have huge stakes in the outcome of that Arab nation\u2019s civil war, but while Turkey has been deeply involved in sheltering and arming the rebels, Israel has taken pains to stand back, keenly aware that even the perception of support for the uprising will be unhelpful, given its standing in the region.\u00a0 The exception is Syria\u2019s arsenal of advanced weapons, including chemical and biological arms; the Jewish state has already interceded once , and says it will again if they detect them falling into the hands of Hizballah or other terror groups.<\/p>\n
But history may well show that, if it holds, the pact with the Kurds will be of greater significance.\u00a0 Turkey is home to perhaps half of the world\u2019s at least 30 million Kurds, the largest population still seeking a homeland of their own, after being promised one, then denied it, as European leaders were drawing the map of the Middle East after World War I.\u00a0 The uprising Ocalan began in 1984 claimed 40,000 lives; it sought secession for most of the war sought. Kurds now say they will be happy with equal rights and some form of cooperation with fellow Kurds across the borders in northern Iraq, western Iran and in Syria \u2013 where a Kurdish party allied with the PKK has won a measure of autonomy by keeping out of the civil war. \u00a0\u00a0Its accommodation with the PKK may well give Ankara a new measure of influence in what happens with Syria\u2019s Kurds.\u00a0 It already enjoys close ties with Northern Iraq\u2019s Kurdish government, to the point of cooperating on building a pipeline from the oilfields of Kirkuk, bypassing Baghdad. \u00a0Iraq\u2019s Kurds, in turn, have a history of cooperation with Israel. \u00a0So in a way, what Obama did in the trailer in the sandstorm on the runway was to close a circle. \u00a0It\u2019s far from a perfect circle, though, especially given Erdogan\u2019s ardent support for the Palestinians, including Hamas. \u00a0The day after receiving the apology, he announced he was considering a trip to the Gaza Strip. \u00a0Washington said it wished he wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
But the Turks figure they\u2019re on a roll, as Erodgan\u2019s top advisor, Ibrahim Kalin, told TIME\u2019s Pelin Turgut: \u00a0\u201dThe apology in particular presents new opportunities for the moribund Middle East peace process, which the Obama administration has tried to revive without much success. We are aware of the obstacles to the realization of the two-state solution, including the occupation of Palestinian territories and the illegal settlements,\u201d Kalin said. \u00a0\u201dBut it is not impossible to establish peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians, each having its own state and enjoying a free and dignified life.\u201d<\/p>\n
via Turkey\u2019s Big Week Means New Clout In An Emerging Middle East | TIME.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Karl VickMarch 28 HAWRE MUHAMED \/ METROGRAPHY Kurds celebrate Newroz in the PKK controlled area of Qandil in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan. A sandstorm was kicking up at Ben Gurion International midday last Friday, winds bad enough to cancel the departure ceremony for President Obama\u2019s winning trip to Israel. But in a sheet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":68851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,2938,155],"tags":[4899,3803],"class_list":["post-68849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-middle-east-middle-east-regions","category-palestinianna","tag-kurdistan","tag-netanyahu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}