The Age, Australia
Oct 14 2007
US urges calm as Turkey threatens to strike Kurds
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Molly Moore and
Robin Wright
October 15, 2007
US OFFICIALS have begun intense lobbying to defuse Turkish threats to
launch an attack on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
The US is also troubled by Ankara’s threats to limit access to
crucial air and land routes, which have become a lifeline for US
troops in Iraq.
"The Turkish Government and public are seriously weighing all of
their options," the Assistant Secretary of State, Daniel Fried, said
after meeting officials in Ankara. "We need to focus with Turkey on
our long-term mutual interests."
But as Mr Fried appealed for restraint, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, speaking at a political rally in Istanbul, urged
Parliament to declare a mobilisation against Kurdish rebels and the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
In the border region, witnesses said Turkish artillery fired seven to
eight shells into a village in northern Iraq late on Saturday – the
latest bout of regular shelling of the mountainous border area where
separatist guerillas are believed to hide.
Fears of a new frontier of instability in the Middle East sent oil
prices soaring on Friday to a record high of $US84 a barrel.
US military officials predicted disastrous consequences if Turkey
carries out a threat to strike northern Iraq, and warned of serious
repercussions for the safety of American troops if Turkey reduced the
supply lines it now permits.
The confluence of two seemingly unrelated events could not have come
at a worse time. The bodies of 13 Turkish soldiers killed last
weekend had barely been buried in towns across Turkey when the House
Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington approved a resolution that
labelled as genocide the mass killings of Armenians during the final
decades of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey does not deny the deaths but argues that they occurred as part
of a war in which Turks were also killed. "This is not only about a
resolution," said Egemen Bagis, a member of the Turkish Parliament
and a foreign policy adviser to Mr Erdogan. "We’re fed up with the
PKK – it is a clear and present danger for us. This insult over the
genocide claims is the last straw."
Domestic politics in both countries – the Armenian lobby that pushed
for the genocide resolution in the US Congress, and growing pressure
on the Turkish President to stop Kurdish rebel attacks – collided to
create an international crisis.
"It’s a difficult time for the relationship," US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said on Saturday, noting that Mr Fried had gone to
Turkey to reassure the Turks "that we really value this
relationship".
A recent poll conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United
States, a trans-Atlantic public policy organisation, found that
Turkish attitudes towards the US were becoming increasingly hostile.
Using its 100-degree thermometer scale, the fund found that Turkish
"warmth" towards the US had plunged from 28 degrees in 2004 to 11
degrees in 2007.
"Each time we have a soldier killed, many people look at Washington
and they believe that Americans are responsible for this because they
prevent us from stopping the infiltration into Turkey," said Onur
Oymen, deputy chairman of the opposition Republican People’s Party.
Mr Erdogan is feeling increased heat from his military, which is
suspicious of his Islamic roots and acquiescence to Washington in
taking no action against Kurdish rebels in Iraq.
His public is angry over the genocide vote, frustrated with a
European Union that is unwilling to admit Turkey to its club, and
outraged that the US has turned its back on what Turks consider their
own fight against terrorism, a 23-year-long war with the Kurdish
separatists.
WASHINGTON POST