Turkey

by tristero

The situation in Turkey has, for a long time been one of those slo-mo train wrecks that characterize the Bush era, where anyone with half a brain can foresee the calamities that seem to arrive as a complete and utter shock to the people we pay to protect us. The latest toot of the train horns:

The speaker of Iraq’s parliament warned Turkey on Thursday that his government would cut off the flow of oil from northern Iraq if Ankara followed through on its threat to level economic sanctions against the country.

Mahmoud al-Mashhadani’s comments came a day after Turkey’s top leadership agreed to recommend the government take economic measures to force cooperation by Iraqis against Kurdish rebels who have been staging cross-border attacks against Turkish troops.

“Northern Iraq cannot be pressured,” al-Mashhadani told reporters in the Syrian capital of Damascus. “Iraq is a rich country, and if there are economic pressures, we will cut off the Ceyhan pipeline,” he said, referring to two oil pipelines that run from northern Iraq to Turkey’s Ceyhan oil terminal on the Mediterranean Sea.

Turkey has threatened to stage an incursion into northern Iraq if Iraqi Kurds and U.S.-led coalition forces do not crack down on Kurdish rebels based there, particularly following a rebel ambush Sunday that killed 12 Turkish soldiers near the border.

And who may benefit from this crisis? Syria:

[Iraqi speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmoud] Al-Mashhadani, who is on a five-day visit to Syria, said Syria is considering mediating between Turkey and Iraq in an effort to end the crisis.

“There is a plan for mediation,and it will be announced at the right time if the conditions are met,” he said following talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad and his deputy, Farouk al-Sharaa.

Al-Mashhadani did not elaborate but said Assad expressed readiness to assume a positive role in solving the problem.