August 29, 2006

The JDP’s (Justice Development Party) cabinet convened yesterday and decided to send Turkish troops as “peacekeeping force” to Lebanon. The people in Turkey are united against such a troop deployment. In order to implement the decision, which will force Turkey to get involved in a war and will make it a murderer of the Middle Eastern people, the Assembly may have to be called into an emergency session. While the JDP is organizing a summit, the opposition has already started to mobilize against sending troops.

We can create another March 1st!

The population is mobilizing under the slogan of “We can create another March 1st!” The March 1st incident refers back to the fateful and historic Assembly decision to prevent the US from using Turkey’s land to launch the war against Iraq. Although the government and the ruling classes tried their best to fulfill the US’s order to comply, and even though the representatives wanted to vote for a pro US resolution, the mobilization of the people was so powerful that they were forced to vote against their wishes. Literally hundreds of thousands of people organized and flooded the representative’s phones with unceasing calls to demand a rejection of the US’s war plans. Even many death threats were reported against the representatives if the vote passed. In the end, on March 1st, the Assembly denied the US the right to attack Iraq from its northern border.

Today, the government speaker Cemil Çiçek likened the war, where thousands of people lose their lives, to a soccer match and said, “Turkey can not watch the developments as if watching a match from behind the goal posts.”

The president had also voiced his opinion on the matter only days earlier when he said Turkey should stay out of Lebanon. Cemil Çiçek replied to the President in his announcement and said they respectfully disagreed.

MB.