Turkey

by tristero

There is a very serious crisis underway which is 3 days short, give or take, from turning into another Bush/Iraq catastrophe. To make a long story short, the PKK in Iraq have been attacking Turkish soldiers. This is in response to attacks from Turkish soldiers who in turn were attacked by the PKK and this infinite loop has been going on since who knows when. It’s almost as if Turkey and the PKK looked at the the Israel/Palestine situation and said to themselves, “Wow! That, too could be us.”

Recently, Turkey issued a statement authorizing military force which was then authorized by their Parliament. We were assured by the NY Times, but without attribution to any expert, that Turkey would never have any intention of actually invading. So, as if on cue, the PKK attacked again and killed at least 12 Turkish soldiers. Eight more are missing. The government and the Turkish people are absolutely furious and Turkish military movements have been spotted on the border.

Enter Condoleeza Rice who begged PM Erdogan for “a few days” before invading. What Rice hopes to accomplish is unclear other than to briefly postpone an “unlikely” invasion that even before this attack looked to me as all too inevitable. There’s a lot of spinning going on right now, with conflicting emphases, so below is some detail from the link above. Hopefully, this will help you sort out what’s going on.

Why is this important? Because a Turkish invasion of Iraq will hellishly complicate a hellishly tragic situation. Based on Dick Cheney et al’s long history of sober, intelligent foreign policy initiatives – namely none – it is quite likely that if Ahmadinejad so much as breathes after the Turks invade (assuming they will), the Bush administration will declare a casus belli with Iran, and people will be distracted from whatever happens on the Turkish border as Operation Exterminate All The Brutes kicks off against Tehran.

Even if you don’t accept that last prediction, this is a terribly serious situation:

Turkey continued to bolster its forces at the border Monday, including land and air units. But in advance of his departure for a two-day trip to London, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had delayed a decision about retaliation after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice intervened…

“We do not believe unilateral cross-border operations are the best way to address this issue,” [a U.S. spokesman] said, describing Rice’s call to Erdogan. “In our view, there are better ways to deal with this issue.”

McCormack said Rice had called Erdogan and Massoud Barzani, leader of the Iraqi regional Kurdish government…

The Turkish military retaliated inside Turkey for the ambush, killing as many as 34 Kurdish militants, the military said Monday, a higher number than had been reported. But the ambush still drew strong public outrage here, and its brazenness could effectively force the government to make good on its warning to send forces into northern Iraq.

The confrontation over PKK activities in northern Iraq has brought Turkish-American relations to their lowest point in years. Turkey says the United States, a NATO ally that has military control over northern Iraq, should do more to help fight the Kurdish group, which has killed nearly 40 Turkish soldiers in recent weeks in cross-border raids. Erdogan said he expected the United States to take “swift steps” against the militants…

“We don’t want to go into northern Iraq – it’s a mess,” said Suat Kiniklioglu, a lawmaker from Erdogan’s party who is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. “We are a country negotiating with the European Union.”

Kiniklioglu added: “I think we’ve passed the threshold. It looks like for two days or three days there will be a holding off and a waiting period. Unless the U.S. comes up with something magic in the next few days, which is highly unlikely, we’ll probably go in.”

Iraqi officials offered a mixed response. “We are looking for peace, not war, and to solve problems peacefully,” said President Jalal Talabani. But Talabani, who is himself a Kurd, added tartly, “We will not hand any Kurdish man to Turkey, even a Kurdish cat.”

Emphasis added. There have been reports of a ceasefire from the PKK. But Turks are, well, you can guess, and the duplication of the message implies this is a well-coordinated response:

Talibani’s office said Monday that the PKK was on the verge of announcing a cease-fire after he called on it to lay down its arms and leave Iraq. That view that brought a skeptical response from Erdogan.

“These assessments of Talabani do not personally satisfy me,” he said. “It is beautiful to say such words. The expressions are beautiful. But we would like to see what its outcome is going to be.”

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Turkish officials said statements would no longer help. “Statements on terror will not satisfy us,” Cemil Cicek, a government spokesman, said in a televised news conference. “In terms of statements, there has been nothing left unspoken. We expected and will expect firm steps from our counterparts. At this point, there is no importance of anything said by anyone.”

Recently, Juan Cole wrote:

First the Turkish parliament voted to allow military incursions into Iraq in hot pursuit of Kurdish terrorists who killed people in Turkey. Now the Iraqi parliament is crafting a resolution denouncing the Turkish parliament. All these mutual condemnations remind me eerily of 1914.

Then again, Professor Cole has always been an optimist.

It’s conceivable that some kind of of DMZ might be imposed by American troops. If so, there is little chance of it holding for very long without a massacre. And if American as well as Iraqi and Turkish casualties start to mount, Bush and theThe Man Called Petraeus will need all their experience and talent to avert sheer horror.

And that’s why Professor Cole is an optimist.

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PS I should add that if anyone has more detailed knowledge of this conflict, either historically or about what is going on now, it would be great if you could leave comments, links, etc here. Thanks.