KALEIDOSCOPE

The Turkish gambit

Nasrine R. Karim

Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.
   - Robert Louis Stevenson
   
   It is a matter of time the Kurds, thinking that finally they have the possibility of an independent oil-rich, land-locked country will wake up to a mere reverie!
   An article in the July 30th of the Washington Post revealed that plans are being discussed in Washington to open up a new front in Iraq by dispatching US Special Forces to the north of the country, in a covert operation against positions and camps occupied by rebels attached to the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK).
   Eric S. Edelman, a former Ambassador to Turkey and also a former aide to Vice President Cheney, who is currently serving as undersecretary of defense, announced the plans to a select group of Congress members, including members of the Armed Services Committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Edelman is known to retain close links with official political and military sources in Turkey.
   In line with the Iraqi constitution, the Kurdish parties have established an enclave in the north of Iraq run by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Now plans are being discussed to throw further fuel on the fire and intensify divisions in the ravaged country with a provocative military action against PKK militants!
   The KRG, led by President Masoud Barzani, has proved to one of the most loyal supporters of the US. Following the recent problems with the main Sunni bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), the US seems to be even more dependent on the assistance of the Kurdish faction in the national parliament headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. But for some time both Barzani and Talibani have been under pressure from Turkey's ex-Special Representative for Countering Terrorism, retired General Edip Baser, and his US counterpart Joseph Ralston, to take effective action against the PKK in the north.
   The Turkish army has been massing troops on its border to northern Iraq. Turkish generals have repeatedly threatened to cross the border in pursuit of PKK forces. The US initiating a supportive statement of "the PKK is also an US enemy" is a response to increasing pressure by the Turkish military for a full-scale military invasion of the known PKK hubs within the province with or without US assistance. Currently Turkey has a well-equipped army of 250,000 soldiers near the border, facing some 4,000 PKK fighters hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq. Turkey's chagrin is the reluctance by the KRG leadership and the Kurd Talibani to deal with the PKK.
   While the US officials are moving towards strengthening relations with Ankara and encouraging Turkey as a power broker in the Middle East and Arabian Peninsula-particularly with the aim of isolating and increasing pressure on Iran. The latest plans for a US covert operation against the PKK are obviously aimed at breaking this logjam and preventing an incursion by the Turkish army into Iraq. The US offered to crack down on the PKK themselves....
   Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT), headed by Emre Taner, urged Turkey to become much more ambitious in the field of foreign policy. Taner wrote, "In the period we are in, we will see the process by which many nations lose the marathon of history. All values, structures, relations, systems and social order, be they socio-economic or political, religious or moral, are being reshaped and redefined. This process is representative of the period in which new key players, secondary players and the rules of the international system are being redefined and even reborn."
   According to Taner, Turkey had to ensure it was in a position to play the role of a key player. "Turkey does not have the luxury of letting things flow at its own pace or of simply following laissez-faire tactics with regards its policies." Plans for a new role for Turkey are also being debated within American foreign policy circles.
   According to the article, entitled, "Bush's Turkish Gamble" in the Washington Post, US Special Forces would "help the Turks neutralize the PKK" and "behead the guerrilla organization by helping Turkey get rid of PKK leaders that they have targeted for years." This is a confirmation of the intimate US knowledge of the PKK hierarchy. The Turkish high command has been campaigning for an invasion of northern Iraq for some months. Recently, the Turkish artillery fired on PKK positions inside Iraq's borders.
   Just two days before his successful reelection, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (AKP-Justice and Development Party) made his own threat of a military incursion into Iraq against the Kurds. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, AKP deputy Egemen Bagis said that US should note that Turkey is ready for an incursion into northern Iraq, irrespective of the repercussions for relations between Turkey and Washington. Bagis underlined that Turkey would not hesitate and would not ask permission for a possible cross border operation.
   The Turkish economy has grown substantially in recent years and consequently it's increasing economic and political importance in the region of the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula.
   "Turkey is not China," author George Friedmann writes, "but in becoming the largest Muslim economy, as well as the largest economy in the eastern Mediterranean, south-eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus and east to the Hindu Kush, Turkey is moving to regain its traditional position of primacy in the region. Its growth is still fragile and can be disrupted, but there is no question that it has become the leading regional economy, as well as one of the most dynamic. Additionally, Turkey's geographic position greatly enables it to become Europe's primary transit hub for energy supplies, especially at a time when Europe is trying to reduce its dependence on Russia."
   US-Turkish relations had been unstable, primarily because of the close links developed by the US and Kurdish forces in Iraq going back to "Operation Desert Storm".
   Friedmann concludes with an appeal-for Turkey to resume a major role in the region. "For the past 90 years, Turkey has not played its historic role. Now, however, economic and politico-military indicators point to Turkey's slow reclamation of that role. The rumours about Turkish action against the PKK have much broader significance. They point to a changing role for Turkey-and that will mean massive regional changes over time." Turkish Foreign Minister is said to be of the same opinion.
   In recent weeks, Turkish leaders have repeatedly warned that the Turkish army would take action against separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) camps in Iraq, if US and Iraqi forces failed to do so. The PKK has waged a guerrilla war inside Turkey for more than two decades.
   Associated Press confirmed that three unnamed officials said that several hundred Turkish troops had been involved in a "hot pursuit" raid into a remote mountainous region of northern Iraq yesterday. One source based in the border region said 600 commandos, backed by several thousand troops on the border, entered Iraq before dawn and returned later in the day. He claimed that the raid across from the Turkish border town of Cukurca was in response to an attack by PKK rebels inside Iraqi territory. According to Associated Press, the three officials stood by their comments despite government denials.
   A deputy minister in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, told Reuters recently: "This afternoon 10 Turkish helicopters landed in a village in Mazouri, which is... 3 kilometres inside the Iraqi border. They landed around 150 Turkish Special Forces. After two hours they left and there were no confrontations with the PKK." He confirmed that the village was in an area controlled by the PKK.
   However, the Turkish Foreign Minister in Ankara denied the reports about military incursions into Iraq: "There is no such thing, no such entry to another country," but did not rule out future Turkish military operations. He told NTV television. "If such a thing happens, then we would announce it. We are in a war with terror - we will do whatever is necessary to fight terrorism."
   Turkish Chief of General Staff put the matter more bluntly on May 31st, telling reporters he favoured a military incursion to clean out the PKK bases. He said the military was ready, but the order had to come from the government. "The political authorities must determine whether, once we go in, we act only against the PKK, or if something will happen with (KRG President Massoud) Barzani as well... I already told Turkey and the world on April 12th that we need this... As military men, we are ready, but all military men need orders."
   While the tensions on the Turkish-Iraqi border involve a good deal of posturing by both the government and the military, there is no doubt that the Turkish establishment as a whole is hostile, not only to repeated PKK attacks inside Turkey, but to the emergence of a quasi-independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq. This is an historic phenomenon.
   As the price of their support for the 2003 US-led invasion, the two major Kurdish nationalist parties in Iraq-the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)-insisted on the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish region with extensive powers and its own security forces
   Ankara is bitterly opposed to the extension of the Kurdish region to Kirkuk, which has a substantial Turkomen as well as Arab population. More fundamentally, Turkish leaders fear that the addition of Kirkuk's oil wealth to the Kurdish region will establish the economic basis for the KRG to declare full independence-a move that would provide political encouragement for Kurdish separatists in Turkey, as well as Syria and Iran. Inside Kirkuk itself, sectarian violence is escalating as Kurdish leaders press ahead with their demand for a referendum despite the opposition of Arab and Turkomen residents.
   The prospect of a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq again demonstrates that the US occupation has not only created a catastrophe for the Iraqi people, but profoundly destabilised relations throughout the Middle East.
   To jog the memory the Economist magazine caustically noted in an article on June 5th: "The number of awkward questions raised (for Washington) is as great as the number of overlapping alliances and rivalries in the region. The Kurds are America's best friends in Iraq and a decent advertisement that at least something has gone right in that bloodied country. Many plans for an American exit from Iraq involve leaving some forces in the relatively peaceful region. So a Turkish invasion would be a disaster, inserting NATO's second-largest army in the middle of territory America is desperately hoping to keep calm."
   "A thousand friends are too few; one enemy is one too many." - Turkish Proverb

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