Members of the Memphis Rotary Club heard some unexpectedly tough talk on
Thursday from Nabi Sensoy, ambassador to the United States from Turkey, this
year’s Memphis in May honoree. Though most of his 30-minute luncheon address to
Rotarians at the Convention Center was devoted to the polite bromides expected
on such an occasion (example: “I’m looking forward to ‘walking in Memphis'”),
Sensoy minced no words when it came to several specific problem
areas.
The Rotarians learned of Turkey’s frustration in its so far unsuccessful efforts
to be accepted into the European Economic Union as a fully fledged member – a
failure that Sensoy attributed to various “pretexts” – including political
misconceptions on the part of other Europeans about the fact that Turkey’s
population is “99 percent” Muslim.
“But we are a democratic and secular state, not a Muslim state, and in that part
of the world it is hard to find another country with both democratic and secular
traditions,” said Sensoy, who insisted that Turkey, a growing economic power and
“a part of the Western world,” belonged to almost every trans-European
organization of importance, including NATO, for which it served as a “southeast
bastion.”
Asked about Iraq, with which Turkey shares a border, Sensoy described the “main
tenets” of his country’s attitudes as these: “We
would like to see an Iraq which could preserve its independence, its territorial
integrity, and its national unity, a country that is at peace with itself and
at peace with its neighbors.”
Growing more specific, Sensoy talked of Turkey’s concerns about incursions into
its national territory from partisans of the PKK, a militant organization
representing an independence movement for ethnic Kurds, who control most of
Iraq’s northern areas and who constitute a sizeable minority in Turkey just
across the border.
The PKK’s “hit-and-run attacks” in Turkey had caused some 35,00 deaths in the
last two and half decades, Sensoy said. “It is by far the dirtiest terrorist
organization in the world, and it has entrenched itself in northern Iraq.” He
lamented, “We are second to none in our kindness toward the Kurds, but so far
they have not shown their appreciation very much.”
Consequently, Sensoy warned, Turkey reserved the right to launch its own attacks
across the Iraq border. “There have been some raids,” he acknowledged, pausing
before going on: “Against the PKK, nobody else.”
In the course of a brief interview after his address, Sensoy touched on another
difficult issue – the demand by ethnic Armenians that Turkey be condemned for
what they maintain was an officially sanctioned massacre of the country’s
Armenian minority in the years after World War I. A resolution to that effect,
supported by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi among others, was brought before
Congress during the last year but failed of passage.
Sensoy expressed gratitude to both President Bush and the congressional majority
for combining to defeat the measure, which, he said without specifiying, would
have had “disastrous consequences” for relations between the United States and
Turkey. Some members of Congress, including 9th District U.S. Rep.
Steve Cohen of Memphis, had cautioned at the time that Turkey was indispensable
to the maintenance of supply routes to the American military mission in
Iraq.
“He has traveled in our country,” Sensoy noted of Cohen, whom he described as “a
great representative of the people of the United States of America.”
