The Turkish National Assembly on Thursday approved military assistance for Turkey's military intervention in Libya, which for now include 4 frigates, a submarine and a support ship, despite continuing criticism from the government towards attitude of some members of the alliance.
The motion passed in Turkey's parliament has a mandate for a year to help the international coalition to implement the UN resolution against Libya, authorizing the executive to send both troops and air and naval forces abroad what the resolution calls a "multidimensional contribution, but for now that help is 4 Turkish frigate, a submarine and a supply ship, that Turkey has deployed between the Greek island of Crete and Libyan port of Benghazi as part of monitoring the arms embargo to the North African country.
Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, announced yesterday that NATO had agreed to assume command of all allied military operations in Libya, after several days of arguments and debates. The agreement was finally reached in a conference call between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the foreign ministers of Turkey, France and the UK. "It has come to a compromise of principle in a very short time ... The operation will be transferred entirely to NATO," said Davutoğlu to the press.
Shortly before the vote in the Turkish parliament, the minister Davutoğlu met with leaders major political parties in Turkey to inform the content of the motion. According to reports from that meeting, said the base Davutoğlu that NATO has in the Aegean city of İzmir could be used to support military intervention in Libya, yet for now there is no official request from NATO in this regard and Turkish Foreign Minister insisted that Turkey's contribution is limited to the control of the arms embargo and the protection and assistance of civilians, not involved in combat operations, a position similar to the one with respect to the Allied military intervention in Afghanistan.
Reviews
against France
the Turkish press yesterday continued collecting criticism of many politicians in Turkey against the position of many Western countries, especially France. "The West has created these dictators. They have a huge responsibility in creating it, and then declare them as 'Frankenstein'. Now they want to get rid of these leaders ... We've never looked at these issues from their perspective of oil and economic interests" said Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek in remarks by the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
Çiçek, which was critical for France-a country that is opposed to Turkey joining the European Union, criticized the support given from Western leaders like Gaddafi and recalled that his country had repeatedly asked the Libyan leader to resign and you start a political transition in the country. "Our prime minister made an urgent appeal to Qaddafi for his resignation, and he remembered what had happened to Saddam Hussein," said the minister.
Meanwhile Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also attacked France yesterday saying that the same people that hinder the entry of Turkey into the EU have vested interests and expressions like "crusade" to refer to Libya, a term that was used by French Interior Minister and has aroused much criticism in Turkey. Also the President of the Republic, Abdullah Gül, was upset with the French minister's remarks showed his doubts about the outcome and the ultimate goals of the operation in Libya, which according Gül could become a second Iraq.
0 comments:
Post a Comment