TURKISH GOVT SEEKS VOTE ON IRAQ INCURSION
Agence France Presse
Oct 15 2007
ANKARA (AFP) – Turkey moved a step closer Monday to a possible
incursion in northern Iraq as the government sought parliament’s
approval for military action against Kurdish rebel bases, despite
US opposition.
Ankara hopes it will not be forced to resort to military action,
Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek told reporters after a cabinet
meeting, shortly before a motion was formally submitted to parliament.
"We hope that there will be no reason to use the authorisation,
we hope there will be no need for that," he said.
The motion seeks a one-year authorisation for a military operation
in northern Iraq, where an estimated 3,500 rebels of the separatist
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are based.
The government will decide on the timing and scope of the operation
and can use the authorisation for numerous raids, Cicek said.
He underlined that any cross-border operation would only target the
PKK and Ankara had no designs on Iraqi territory.
"We have always respected the sovereignty of Iraq, which is a friendly
and brotherly country," Cicek said.
The government plans to put the motion to a vote on Wednesday and could
opt to hold a closed-door debate, Sadullah Ergin, the parliamentary
group chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said.
The AKP, which dominates parliament, is expected to secure
parliamentary approval but a top military commander said it was too
early to speculate on the timing of any operation.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted last week that action was
unlikely to be immediate.
The Turkish government’s motion is likely to dominate talks during
Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi’s one-day visit to Ankara
Tuesday.
Hashemi will discuss "all aspects of bilateral ties" with Erdogan
and President Abdullah Gul, a Turkish diplomat said.
The United States and Iraq have repeatedly warned Turkey against
an incursion.
"We all have an interest in a stable Iraq and a desire to see the PKK
(rebels) brought to justice," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe
said Monday.
"But we urge the Turks to continue their discussions with us and
the Iraqis, and to show restraint from any potentially destabilizing
actions."
Turkey says it has no other option because neither Washington nor
Baghdad is helping end the safe haven the PKK enjoys in northern Iraq.
Ties between Ankara and Washington suffered a fresh blow last week
when the US House Foreign Affairs Committee endorsed a bill branding
the Ottoman Empire’s mass killings of Armenians during World War I
as genocide.
The army said at the weekend that it had shelled Iraqi territory
after PKK rebels attacked a Turkish military outpost with rockets
and gunfire from across the border.
Mounting violence by the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey
and much of the international community including the United States,
has increased the pressure on Erdogan to take tougher measures against
the rebels.
Ankara says the PKK enjoys free movement in northern Iraq and obtains
weapons and explosives there for attacks inside Turkey. It has accused
the Iraqi Kurds, who run the region, of tolerating and even supporting
the rebels.
Turkish criticism of Washington increased recently after it emerged
that US weapons given to Iraq had ended up in PKK hands.
Turkey and Iraq signed an accord last month to combat the PKK but
failed to agree on a clause allowing Turkish troops to engage in
"hot pursuit" — as they did regularly in the 1990s — against rebels
fleeing into Iraqi territory.
Observers here also doubt that the embattled Baghdad government,
which has virtually no authority over northern Iraq, can cajole the
Iraqi Kurds into action against the PKK.
The PKK has waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeast
Turkey since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000
lives.