I’ve been one of the few skeptical voices on Iraqi Kurdistan that I’ve heard. This report from Turkey tends to confirm what I’ve been saying for some time:
ANKARA, Oct 20 (Reuters) – Turkey expects the United States to take urgent action against Kurdish rebels hiding in northern Iraq, its prime minister said, in comments suggesting Ankara hopes to avoid a Turkish military operation in the region.
Turkey’s parliament this week authorised troops to cross the mountainous border into northern Iraq to track down rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who use the region as a base from which to attack Turkish targets.
“We expect the coalition forces in Iraq, above all the Americans, to take steps in the current situation,” Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told Turkish television late on Friday.
“These steps must be taken to ensure we get good results in the fight against the terrorist organisation in northern Iraq.”
“We expect things from the United States rather than from Iraq,” he said. The Baghdad government has little clout in the mainly Kurdish autonomous region of the north.
Washington and Baghdad have urged Ankara to avoid military action, which they fear could destabilise the whole region, and to fight the PKK by diplomatic and other means.
But Erdogan’s government is under heavy domestic pressure to act after a series of deadly PKK attacks on Turkish troops.
The reluctance of the Kurdistan Regional Authority to suppress the Kurdish separatists is understandable: Messrs. Barzani and Talabani, heads of the dominant “mainstream political parties” in Iraqi Kurdistan, better thought of IMO as the leaders of the largest fiefdoms, at least are affording them the support that ignoring them affords if they’re not sympathetic with the separatist objectives of the PKK. This places the U. S. on the horns of a dilemma.
Are we opposed to terrorism or not? If we’re opposed to terrorism, shouldn’t we be opposed to terrorism directed against Turks? We have the choice of antagonizing the Turks, one of the U. S.’s rare allies in the Middle East, or the Kurds, the group in Iraq most reliably supportive of Americans. This dilemma is particularly notable when taken in the context of the idea put forward by several of the Democratic presidential aspirants of withdrawing troops from the rest of Iraq into Iraqi Kurdistan.
Such a move would intensify the difficulty of the choice that the U. S. may be forced to make.
Are we opposed to terrorism or not? If we’re opposed to terrorism, shouldn’t we be opposed to terrorism directed against Turks?
I can only answer for myself, of course, but here are my answers: Yes, and yes. Even if the Turks weren’t our putative allies, we should be against terrorism period. We especially shouldn’t want to see the rot spread any farther than it has already.
The Turks are not nice people. Not only did they murder over a million Armenian Christians in a forced march toward the end of WWI, they have also slaughtered Kurds that were Turkish citizens.
And yet the Secular minded Generals of Turkey (the real power in a crisis), have been supportive of America as part of upholding Ataturk’s vision of secularism – a rarity in a Mohammedan dominated land.
The PKK are communists first and Kurds second. The Kurds in Northern Iraq have enjoyed an autonomy never enjoyed by a Kurdish entity in the entire Middle East. (I do not know why Turks, Arabs and Iranians hate Kurds so much. I am lacking on those details. The irony is the Kurds or Mohammedan)
America could easily twist the horns of a dilemma on autonomous Kurds in Northern Iraq: Either the Iraqi Kurds loose their sympathy for the PKK Kurds or the Sunni and Shia Mohammedans will be able to retain a greater portion of Iraq’s governmental structure over the Kurds.
Iraq Kurds have a sweet deal now, they would have to decide with Communist Kurdish sympathy or retain their semi-independence.
I agree with Ice.
Let’s remember that Turkey is NATO member. We simply cannot go on turning a blind eye toward terrorism directed at a NATO member. The Turks have been more than tolerant on this front — perhaps the price we exacted in exchange for their failure to support the invasion?
Michael Reynolds wrote: I agree with Ice.
Another sign of the impending apocalypse.
John wrote: The Turks are not nice people. Not only did they murder over a million Armenian Christians in a forced march toward the end of WWI, they have also slaughtered Kurds that were Turkish citizens.
Blaming Turks today for the actions of the government of 90 years ago doesn’t seem fair-minded. (Note that this is different than merely acknowledging that such a massacre took place.) One could point to the US murder of a couple of million Germans & Japanese in various fire-bombing campaigns against civilian targets in WWII and conclude Americans are not nice either. (Also, the American example has the advantage of being recent enough that Americans that participated in said campaigns are still alive in somewhat substantial numbers.)
More importantly, whether or not the Turks (or the Americans) are nice is entirely irrelevant. The specific question is: Do we want to allow PKK sponsored terrorism to create instability along the Turkish-Iraqi border? If not, what can we do about, and what should we do about it?