TekinWEBlog

On the second day of World Economic Forum 2009 taking place in Davos, Switzerland, an interesting but unfortunate event has taken place.

As some may have seen on the news, yesterday the Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan and Israel’s President Peres has gotten in a debate about Isreal’s military actions in Gaza, which resulted in Turkish Prime Minister walking out from the panel.

Below is the commentary report of famous CNN reporter Richard Quest for the event:

Since the subject is a hot and fragile one, Gaza, with the given panalists, it was unfortunate but inevitable to contain the debate.

From my point of view:

• Both sides have rudely aggravated each one and other, which was wrong to begin with.
• Davos is not about Israel’s military actions in Gaza nor Erdoğan’s Government’s opinion and their stand towards Israel ever since he was first elected. WEF is about business and economics, so there was a shift of agenda.
• It is not important how righteous you stand by, in your or the rest of the world’s opinion, nor how much proud you are of the tough character you claim to have, when it comes to international relations, diplomacy is fragile. One prime minister should not expect the rest of the world to come around, nor should a president!
• This incident will have dire results in politics and economics between Israel and Turkey.
• This kind of actions are not what heroes are made of, nor do diserve the welcoming of as one, as the provoked supporters of government has welcomed Erdoğan when he arrived to Istanbul last night.
• And for David Ignatius (the moderator for the panel): It is a forum, for God’s sake, let the parties talk under equal measures.

I have been watching a lot of comments, both domestic and international sources, claiming different views.

As the BBC has headlined the event as “Turkish PM storms off in Gaza row,” while Richard Quest commented on the event as “Storm in a Tea Cup.”

The Arabic and general Turkish consensus is for Erdoğan’s action, declaring him virtually a hero, which will result in increase of political favor among its base voters for the up coming local city elections nation wide. His government has always known how to use such edges for their sake, so this will be no different.

This may be a “storm in a tea cup” when you look at it from a wide perspective on the world agenda, but when the tea cup is the middle east, and the sides are Jewish and Muslims, it may easily become more than a storm, as the today’s world knows the fragility of political dynamics in the region.

English, Poli-Critics AKP, CNN, Davos, Gaza, Israel, Peres, RTE, Türkiye, WEF