The week after

THE fact that the election week has passed off relatively peacefully (although several people lost their lives and scores suffered injuries in election related violence, which unfortunately, is not something unusual for this country) and by and large the political parties have accepted the outcome, brought out a collective sigh of relief from the nation. Nowhere was the sense of relief as conspicuous as in the Karachi stock market that had remained depressed for quite sometime. When the market opened after a long weekend on Tuesday, the index crossed the 15,000 mark, with overseas investors portfolio seeing fresh inflow of $47.358 million. This confidence reflected the strong expectations of political stability after the elections. In these circumstances, any unusual delay in the formation of the government or holding of the first parliamentary session, may again give rise to uncertainty. Therefore, a peaceful transfer of power to a new government is of utmost importance. The caretaker government’s parting gift to the nation can be the approval of a corrective policy package, designed to address the fiscal imbalances. The choices that can be exercised now may become a compulsion later in the year. They could also save the honeymoon period of the new government. Now that the political uncertainly hovering over the country for about a year is likely to come to an end soon, the hard facts of the economic situation must be spotlighted and analysed objectively and scientifically for laying down corrective policies. The political turmoil of the past fifteen months has badly affected the business climate and, consequently, investor confidence.
Despite all kinds of policy incentives, including freedom for complete repatriation of profits, the investor response has been a lot less than encouraging not for lack of interest but due to a poor law and order situation and deep political uncertainty. As a matter of fact, foreign investors have been watching with a lot of interest various prospects in different sectors, yet they have been reluctant to actually step in. Peaceful culmination of the elections, is an important step forward, but from hereon starts another part of the country’s journey through a difficult terrain. The parties that are likely to form a coalition government have yet to see eye-to-eye on two major issues, ie, restoration of the pre-Emergency judiciary and President Pervez Musharraf’s position in the new scenario. Which can set the new coalition partners on a collision course with the President or with one another. Unless, of course, the President somehow realises it is best for him to bow out gracefully rather than to trigger another political crisis that could generate political instability of a more serious nature along with severe economic hardship. One can only hope the transfer of power will take place in a smooth fashion, and the contentious issues will be resolved without causing further turmoil. All concerned owe that to the progress and security of this nation.



Action against PKK

TURKEY has understandable reasons for its latest and largest incursion into northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK guerrillas. But whatever Ankara imagines it will achieve by the incursion, the outcome is certain to be less than it wants. There will be dead, maybe many dead, PKK rebels and a fair number of Turkish troops as well. But when the Turkish Army withdraws, the PKK will return to their shattered camps, regroup and within a few weeks or maybe months at most, the cross-border raids will resume. The price Turkey will pay for this may well prove to be high. Diplomatically the cost has thus far seemed low but when a nation, any nation, invades a neighbor, it crosses a big red line beyond which lies the unknown. As with past Turkish military action on its sovereign territory, the response of the Nuri Al-Maliki government in Baghdad was mixed. At first there seemed to be a muted criticism which only later became anything like a protest. The Iraqi government’s inability to control the activities of Turkish PKK guerrillas operating from its territory into Turkey was the reason for Ankara’s invasion. Any immediate anger from Baghdad would have been an admission of its own failure. The real impact of the Turkish attack will be upon Iraqi Kurds. Not all Kurds support the attempt to create a breakaway Kurdish part of Turkey. Indeed, many feel that in an autonomous region of Iraq, they have already established a cultural and linguistic base for Kurds. However sympathetic they may be toward Turkish Kurds, they see that the PKK’s insistence on challenging Ankara could endanger their own position in Iraq. Nevertheless, the military response is only likely to translate into greater support for the PKK.
What Turkey is really doing is seeking to wreak revenge for Kurdish guerrilla attacks. While it may make Turks feel better, it does not advance by an inch the solution to the Kurdish insurrection in Turkey, which has already claimed over 40,000 lives. The response, at people’s level, is one of despair, as expressed by a Kurd civilian: “I don’t think there is a solution. The state will not accept the Kurdish demands and the PKK will not come down from the mountains.” There is a need for both parties to seek a solution that is less than the maximalist. Part of Ankara’s anger undoubtedly lies in the fact that the present government of Recip Tayyip Erdogan has probably done more than any other to offer Kurds a respected position in Turkey for their language and culture. To be fair to the Turks, it was the Kurds who chose to break the cease-fire that followed the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. For sure, Ankara may not have respected the Kurdish identity as fully as some Kurds wish and certainly remains unprepared to contemplate any idea of Kurdish secession but the genesis of the latest insurgency is entirely the responsibility of a new generation of PKK hotheads. Turkey has been sorely provoked.

—Arab News