Ottawa Citizen, Canada
Oct 12 2007

Trouble’s brewing in Turkey

Harry Sterling, Citizen Special
Published: Friday, October 12, 2007

Turkey’s threat to invade northern Iraq to crush Kurdish guerrillas
has serious implications not just for Iraq’s stability but also for
Turkey’s relations with the United States and with the European
Union.

A resolution before the U.S. Congressional foreign affairs committee
describing the large-scale deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
from 1915 to 1917 as genocide has further heightened tension with
Turkey.

For months, the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
been demanding the Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Bush
administration move forcefully against insurgents belonging to the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, which have escalated attacks into
southeastern Turkey from bases in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan
Province. Fifteen Turkish soldiers were killed by the PKK last
weekend, prompting Mr. Erdogan to announce his government was
preparing the groundwork for military intervention in northern Iraq.

However, the U.S. strongly opposes this, fearing it will destabilize
Iraq and alienate pro-American Iraqi Kurds who were highly supportive
of Washington’s invasion of 2003. The European Union also opposes
intervention.

Although Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed following a
meeting in Ankara to implement measures blocking financial and other
aid to the PKK, he has little military means to force the PKK to stop
cross-border attacks. The Kurdistan authorities for obvious reasons
are reluctant to take on the PKK, though they have in the past. Their
inability to control Iranian-based Kurdish insurgents from attacking
Iranian targets has led to Iran shelling Iraqi Kurdish villages along
its border.

Unless the Kurdistan authorities can persuade the PKK to stop its
attacks, more killings will only increase public demands in Turkey
for direct intervention.

Much of the Turkish public has become increasingly anti-American
since U.S. President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Growing
numbers have also questioned whether Turkey should continue to accept
demands from the European Union for further democratic and human
rights reforms as the price for joining the EU when several EU
states, including France, Germany, Austria and others oppose full
membership.

Thus, calls by the Bush administration and EU leaders for Turkey to
respect Iraqi sovereignty are not falling on receptive ears in Turkey
at a time when Turks, some of them Kurds, are being killed by the
PKK. (The PKK purportedly has been behind a number of bombings in
Turkish cities over the past year.)

Although some analysts believe threats of intervention from the
Erdogan government are intended primarily to force the central Iraqi
government and the Americans to clamp down on the PKK’s bases in
Kurdistan, others believe the Turkish military wants to move against
the PKK and will ultimately prevail in some fashion or other, whether
through approval for significant hot-pursuit operations, shelling PKK
bases, or the establishment of a Turkish controlled cordon sanitaire
on Iraqi territory along the border.

Some believe nationalist elements in Turkey would like to use
military intervention as a means to prevent the Kurdistan authorities
expanding their control over other areas of northern Iraq, including
Kirkuk where there is a Turkmen community.

To complicate matters for President Bush, the congressional genocide
resolution has unleashed an uproar in Turkey. The Erdogan government
has warned the Bush administration that if the resolution actually
goes forward to the full Congress it will have immediate
repercussions on bilateral relations.

There’s concern the U.S. military would lose the use of Turkey’s
important Incirlik military airbase, a critical staging area for
American aircraft supplying U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although President Bush opposes the non-binding resolution, it has
the backing of many Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
whose electoral district has a large Armenian community.

If all parties involved don’t quickly look for an acceptable solution
to the present crisis, Turkey’s traditionally close relations with
the U.S. and other allies could soon be in jeopardy with
unpredictable long-term fallout for the United States, NATO, the EU
and the Middle East region.

Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, is an Ottawa-based commentator. He
served in Turkey.

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