Turkey is Poised for War against Iraq’s Kurds
by Patrick Seale  
Turkey is dangerously close to launching a full-scale war across its eastern border into northern Iraq. The aim would be to wipe out the bases of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), destroy once and for all the party’s separatist ambitions, and put an end to cross-border terrorist attacks and hit-and-run raids by the PKK, which have inflamed nationalist opinion in Turkey.

But, like any such ‘asymmetric’ war waged by a conventional army against an elusive guerrilla enemy, a decisive Turkish victory is by no means assured -- as Israel discovered in its war against Hizbullah in Lebanon last summer. Guerrillas have a way of melting away in the face of superior forces and surviving to fight another day.

 

by Patrick Seale

 

Copyright © 2007 Patrick Seale

Agence Global 

[republished at PFP with Agence Global permission]  

 

Far from quelling Kurdish separatism in Iraq, the war might revive it in Turkey itself, home to some 15 million ethnic Kurds. Turkey fought a bitter war against the PKK from 1984 to 1999, which resulted in 35,000 dead and the displacement of some 2 million.


On both sides, memories of this war are very fresh, and there is great reluctance to see it break out again. The argument on the Turkish side is that a decisive campaign against the PKK is the best way to prevent its recurrence.


What seems certain, however, is that a Turkish assault on northern Iraq would deal a serious blow to Turkey’s already frayed relations with the United States, further destabilize the fragile American-backed government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad, and possibly put Turkey’s own economic growth at risk.


On the other hand, a war against the PKK could yield political benefits for Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he prepares for general elections on 22 July. It could heal tensions between his moderately Islamic government and the army chiefs, who are eager for a showdown with the PKK. It could also blunt the attacks on him from the ultra-secular and ultra-nationalist Kemalist opposition.


A key legacy of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, was the defence of the "territorial integrity" of the new Turkey, which he rescued in the early 1920s from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire defeated in the First World War. Ottoman domains had suffered repeated and large-scale plundering by the Great Powers throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ataturk was determined that no one would ever again be allowed to take a bite out of Turkish territory.


It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Kurdish separatism is seen by the Turks as a deadly threat -- especially when it is suspected of enjoying American backing, as in Iraq.


Seen through Turkish eyes -- and indeed through many Arab eyes as well -- America’s smashing of the Iraqi state has led to a brutal civil war and ethnic cleansing between communities which must inevitably lead to the dismemberment of Iraq into Shia, Sunni and Kurdish entities, which might perhaps be grouped one day into a loose federation once a measure of stability is restored.


At present, however, Iraqi Kurdistan is just about the only part of Iraq where relative peace and prosperity prevail. The Kurds are America’s only dependable allies in Iraq. With American encouragement, funding and weaponry, Kurdish militia forces -- known as peshmerga -- have been used for security duties in Arab areas of Iraq, inevitably arousing Turkish suspicions that some, at least, of their resources have found their way to the PKK.


An autonomous Kurdish "statelet" has already taken shape. It is now actively seeking, by an official plebiscite, to incorporate Kirkuk and is rich oil-rich region, into its domain. For Turkey, this is a red rag to a bull, because the absorption of Kirkuk would give the Kurds the economic means for full independence.


Erdogan’s immediate dilemma is this: whether to authorize a military attack on the PKK in Iraq and risk a breach not only with the United States, but also with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government of northern Iraq under its president Mas‘ud Barzani and with the Maliki government in Iraq; or fail to attack the PKK and face damaging accusations from the armed forces and from secular nationalists of capitulating to Kurdish separatism.


Many observers believe the odds are that he will in the coming weeks authorize an attack. Some 150,000 Turkish troops with tanks and artillery have been massing on the border with Iraq. Mine-clearing operations on the Iraqi side of the border have been underway for several weeks, while Turkish Special Forces, often in civilian clothes, are said to have penetrated some 20 to 40 kilometers inside Iraq to prepare the ground for an attack and to seal off PKK escape routes in the mountains.


The provocations are plainly there. Earlier this month, a grenade attack by PKK separatists killed eight policemen and wounded six others in a barracks in the Turkish province of Tunceli, and a bomb that killed seven people in a market in Ankara on 22 May, is also attributed to the PKK. Clashes between Turkish forces and Kurdish guerrillas are now a daily occurrence. Last year, some 500 people were killed in Turkey by violence attributed to the PKK.


The situation is explosive. Another spark -- and a green light from Erdogan -- could trigger an all-out assault.


Turkey’s suppressed anger is really with the United States, which it accuses of failing, in spite of its promises, to deal decisively with the PKK. It wanted U.S. troops, present everywhere in Iraq, to disarm the PKK or at least contain it. The United States has described the PKK as a terrorist organization but has done little or nothing to suppress it, no doubt for fear of antagonizing its Iraqi Kurdish allies.


Last year, in response to Turkish complaints, the U.S. and Turkish governments appointed two retired generals -- Joseph Ralston on the American side and Edip Baser for Turkey -- and charged them with developing a strategy against the PKK. But Erdogan himself has described this initiative as a failure.


On 3 June, the U.S. Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, urged Turkey not to invade northern Iraq. Speaking at a security conference in Singapore, he expressed the hope that there "would not be a unilateral military action across the border into Iraq."


Instead, the United States has encouraged Ankara and Baghdad to ease tension by means of bilateral talks. A Turkish delegation visited Baghdad last month but appears to have secured none of the assurances it sought. Instead, Iraq’s deputy Prime Minister, Burhan Salih, declared belligerently that Iraq would not accept a breach of its sovereignty.


The Turks are tormented by a perennial question: What are the ultimate U.S. goals for the Kurds? Has Washington accepted the notion of Kurdish statehood in Iraq -- a development which would inevitably excite similar ambitions among Turkey’s Kurds?


Beyond that lies a further, still more sinister, worry. Do the United States and its Israeli ally -- which itself has close, long-standing ties to the Kurds -- plan to use the forces of Kurdish nationalism to weaken and destabilize not only Turkey but also Iraq, Syria and Iran, all housing Kurdish minorities within their borders?


The Turks are acutely aware of America's double-standards. It tolerates Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territories and its daily raids and killings of Palestinian resistance fighters -- all supposedly in the name of Israel’s legitimate self-defence -- while it seeks to restrain Turkey when it, too, in the cause of self-defence, seeks to protect its home territory from militant Kurdish separatists.


Turkey threatened Syria with war in 1998, forcing Damascus to expel the PKK’s founder and leader, Abdallah Öcalan, from its territory. Öcalan is now in a Turkish island jail, but the PKK has revived and once again presents a threat. Will Turkey now be forced to make war on Iraq in defence of the sacred Kemalist notion of "territorial integrity"?




Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

Copyright © 2007 Patrick Seale


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Released: 07 June 2007
Word Count: 1,291
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Agence Global is the exclusive syndication agency for The Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, as well as expert commentary by Richard Bulliet, Mark Hertsgaard, Rami G. Khouri, Peter Kwong,Tom Porteous, Patrick Seale and Immanuel Wallerstein.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Advisory Release: 07 June 2007
Word Count: 1,291
Rights & Permissions Contact: Agence Global, 1.336.686.9002, rights@agenceglobal.com  
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