Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Turkey wants Predators as a gift (from the US, of course!)


MEHMET ALİ BİRAND
By the time you read these lines, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and U.S. President Barack Obama will have met. Because of the time difference, I was not able to get to hear more about the content. But I was able to learn the inside story of the talks through Turkish and American diplomats walking the corridors with thick files in their hands.
Turkey wants Predator-type drones, and not just the reconnaissance ones but also those that can fire missiles, to fight the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
Another wish is that these be donated by the United States.
The U.S., though, is abstaining from giving an answer.
For such a transaction, a congressional decision is needed. But in these “circumstances,” that is, the tension with Israel, many are pointing to the impossibility that Congress would allow such a sale or grant. Also, they cannot talk in definite terms for the non-missile types either. They don’t want to commit themselves. Moreover, if they are not in the form of sales but as grants, they are even more indecisive.
One of the most important items in the Erdoğan-Obama meeting was going to be this.
For those issues that Obama was going to bring up, it was going to be the dispute with Israel and Syria.
What happened as a result? How were the results? I will be able to write about these in my column tomorrow.
Will the Cyprus crisis accelerate?
Turkey had an unwanted baby.
That is the start of natural gas exploration of Greek Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean
Note:
Here we have a president of the USA appointing Turkey as a co-chair of a counter-terriorism group (unbelievable, isn't it?!), while Turkey is friends with every anti-American country and terrorist organization in the world!  What does Obama do?  Practically pins a medal on Turkey's leaders and our Congress, what are they doing?  Silence from the peanut gallery, as usual!
Anyone left in Washington who actually gives a darn what Obama's administration is doing to press the DESTRUCT button on America?  Is their anyone awake in Washington to put a hold on Obama's outreach to America's very dangerous, war-seeking enemies?!
There is only one way Turkey should be on the receiving end of a Predator, preferably one with a missile attached ....... (I'll leave that up to your imagination!)