The Turkish Parliament has approved a government-sponsored motion to extend the presence of the Turkish Naval Forces in the Gulf of Aden, located in the Arabian Sea, as well as the coastal waters off Somalia for one year.
The motion, first approved in 2009, extends for another year the Turkish Naval Forces’ mandate to participate in NATO’s international anti-piracy mission called Operation Ocean Shield, which aims to prevent pirates from hijacking foreign ships in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somali coast where commercial vessels are often over taken by pirates. The motion will expire on Feb. 10, 2016.
While the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) extended their support for the motion, the lawmakers leveled criticism against the government for what they called a “misguided” foreign policy.
MHP Ankara deputy, Özcan Yeniçeri, who spoke on behalf of this party, said they attach importance to the navy’s role in important regions but described the government’s foreign policy as “strategic blindness,” referring to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s book on foreign policy conduct called “Strategic Depth.” Yeniçeri said the current state of foreign policy is a cause for concern and that policies which don’t fit into the realities of history and geography have no future.
CHP Deputy Chairman Faruk Loğoğlu characterized Turkey’s foreign policy as “wandering in an imagined world,” criticizing the government’s policies in Egypt and Syria. He said Turkey has been promoting violence in Egypt while its Assad-obsessed policies in Syria have been misguided
todayszaman.com
