Turkey Rebukes Congress, Threatens Northern Iraq
Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 22, 2007; 12:00 PM
Washington Post foreign correspondent Molly Moore was online Monday,
Oct. 22 at 12 p.m. ET to discuss U.S.-Turkish relations, including the
anger regarding a House resolution recognizing World War I treatment
of Armenians as genocide, and the authorization of force by Turkey’s
Parliament to set the groundwork for an invasion of Northern Iraq to
fight the Kurdish PKK insurgent group.
The transcript follows.
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Molly Moore: The news continues in Turkey and on the Iraq border. I
look forward to trying to answer your questions.
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New York: Iraqi Kurds seem to not want to get rid of PKK. What are the
actual reasons for this? They claim that they have 100,000 soldiers
and that they can resist the Turkish military (the second largest in
NATO). Yet somehow they are ineffective in controlling PKK. Do they
really want a solution to the PKK problem?
Molly Moore: This is the heart of the problem. For the Kurds, this is
largely an ethnic issue: The Kurds want a homeland. The PKK is
fighting for a homeland and in general the Kurdish people support the
struggle for a Kurdish homeland, even if they may not support violence
by the PKK doing cross-border strikes. Even if officials in Baghdad
order Kurdish officials in northern Iraq to take action against the
PKK, the local officials up north will be hard-pressed to do so.
_______________________
North McLean, Va.: Has anyone considered the refuge crises that might
arise if all the Kurds in the region were to all rise up in an attempt
to establish a new Kurdistan?
Molly Moore: This is exactly what officials in all the border
countries are concerned about. Turkey, Iran and Syria all have Kurdish
minorities who want a new Kurdistan, coupled with the Iraqi Kurdish
region. If Turkey sends an invasion force into northern Iraq, there is
fear of the conflict spreading throughout the Kurdish region.
_______________________
San Francisco: What is the current sentiment in Turkey towards France,
considering that France has already passed an Armenian Genocide
resolution and criminalized it’s denial? Doesn’t Turkey need U.S.
assistance and military contracts more than the U.S. needs Turkey?
Molly Moore: Although the French parliament approved a resolution
criminalizing the denial of Armenian Genocide, it was never signed
into law. The parliamentary action prompted the Turks to sever most of
their military ties with France. The stakes are, of course, much
higher with the U.S. because the U.S. sends a huge percentage of its
equipment, supplies, and fuel through Turkish airbases and overland
into Iraq. While in the global scheme of things one might argue that
Turkey needs the U.S. more, at this moment in time when the war in
Iraq is a disaster and Turkey is playing such a crucial role in
supplying U.S. troops and reconstruction teams, Turkey has powerful
leverage.
_______________________
Ralei gh, N.C.: How is this latest crisis affected by the conflict
between the military and the civilian, Islamist politicians
controlling Turkey’s government?
Molly Moore: An outside enemy always tends to diminish internal
feuding and force all sides to focus on the external threat. This is
no exception. The military has been pressuring the civilians
government for months to allow cross-border operations; the civilians
have held back. Now, the civilians have voted conceptually to allow
cross-border operations. Even though the military has been pushing for
this, now, if given the order to go, they face the same problem as
conventional armies fighting guerilla forces anywhere. It’s difficult
to root out the small bands of rebels or find their leaders (a la the
hunt for bin Laden), it’s difficult to send tanks and big pieces of
hardware into the rebels’ home territory (in this case Northern Iraq)
and bombing raids have the nasty tendency to kill lots of innocent
civilians (the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, Israel in the Palestinian
territories) So there are no easy answers even if the civilian
government gives the military the green light.
_______________________
New York: What are the possible action plans for the U.S. government
at this point relating to combating with the PKK? Rice wanted couple
days from Turkey, but do you believe the U.S. has the answers that
would satisfy Turkey?
Molly Moore: Turkey argues it has given the U.S. four and a half years
to do something and the U.S. has done nothing, they complain. The U.S.
is concerned about creating chaos in the only relatively, and let me
emphasize relatively, stable part of a dysfunctional country. The U.S.
may have the answers, but it’s questionable they can pull them off as
quickly as Turkey is demanding.
_______________________
Los Angeles: Is it acceptable for the U.S. Congress to stand mute
while Turkey denies a historical fact and international crime in order
to curry favor from Turkey?
Molly Moore: The The key issue here is not for the U.S. or any other
country to make a judgment, the key issue is for Turkey to achieve its
own reconciliation with Armenians over the issue, to openly and freely
debate the issue and come to terms with it.
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New York: Do you have any comments on the recent provoking statements
made by both Talibani and Barzani regarding how they will be dealing
with the situation? Including the Baghdad administration and the U.S.,
everybody has been saying that Turkey has the right to defend itself
but should refrain from carrying an incursion into Iraq, because it is
their responsibility to handle the issue there. When Israel invaded
Lebanon, it received full support from the U.S. administration. What
is the reason of this double standard?
Molly Moore: The U.S. was not occupying Lebanon at the time.
_______________________
Germany: I realized that in every statement in which PKK is mentioned,
it is referred to as an incursion group. Why do you call this
terrorist group rebels instead of a terrorist group, which they are in
reality?
Molly Moore: "Terrorist" is a term the news media grapples with every
day. The policy of The Post, for instance, is not to use the term
"terrorist attack." Doesn’t it tell you more to know that a suicide
bomber exploded himself in the midst of a political rally than to
simply say there was a terrorist attack at a political rally. The U.S.
has declared the PKK a terrorist group; the Washington Post isn’t in
the business of declaring terrorist groups. Therefore, we attribute
the label to those who have declared it and we try to tell the reader
whether these are rebel factions, suicide bombers, militants armed
with AK-47s, etc. The reader can choose their own labels for the
various actions taken or the people conducting those actions.
_______________________
New York: You say "key issue is for Turkey to achieve its own
reconciliation with Armenians over the issue, to openly and freely
debate the issue and come to terms with it," but Article 301 in Turkey
prevents this. Wouldn’t the Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress
force the issue in Turkey?
Molly Moore: At this point in time, the answer seems to be no. A big
problem is that you have the confluence of two unrelated events that
have become related because of the timing. The PKK has been conducting
attacks inside Turkey since the war for autonomy began in 1984. While
the attacks diminished somewhat after the U.S. invaded Iraq, they have
kicked up again. Public anger over the deaths of soldiers and
civilians in the last two to three weeks coincided with the Armenian
genocide vote in the House committee and combination is severely
threatening relations between the two countries.
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Washington: I got an earful from a Turkish cabdriver over the weekend
that when this happened, there wasn’t a Turkey? Sounds like us arguing
about the American Civil War.
Molly Moore: Even Nancy Pelosi said she had nothing against the
current government, it was the Ottoman Empire.
_______________________
Ocala, Fla.: How large is the current U.S. military presence in
Kurdistan? What happens if our forces take casualties, either from the
Turks or the Kurds — do we shoot back or get out of the way?
Molly Moore: Because the situation is relatively quiet in northern
Iraq, there are not huge numbers of U.S. forces there. The U.S. has
been trying to get away with not putting many forces in the north,
directing them instead to other more troubled regions of the country.
The U.S. and Turkey have the two largest militaries in NATO, they are
allies and would likely coordinate, in one way or the other, any
military operations in the area.
_______________________
Detroit: How close is Turkey to meeting the requirements of the
European Union to be eligible for membership, and is the admission of
the Armenian genocide part of the requirements?
Molly Moore: Turkey has come a long way on meeting many of the
requirements of the EU for membership, but still has a long way to go
on issues such as human rights, economics, politics and making sure
that the military is adequately subservient to the elected military
leadership. But many analysts argue that some of the hoops Turkey is
being asked to jump through to join the EU is also a smoke screen for
the EU’s reluctance to admit a huge, poor Muslim country into its
club. There is a growing xenophobia across Europe today and a growing
fear of expanding immigrant and Muslim populations. So there are two
issues here: the requirements the EU is demanding and the public and
political sentiments in the EU today.
_______________________
Anonymous: Does the EU have any say in what’s happening on the border
between Turkey and its neighbors ?
Molly Moore: No official say, but a huge interest, as do many
countries and neighbors. The Turkish prime minister is heading to
Britain for talks and the foreign minister to Kuwait. There is a huge
amount of diplomacy going on now by many parties that have large
interests or stakes in what is happening on that border. Condi Rice
called the Prime Minister yesterday before his security council
meeting urging Turkey to hold off any attack.
_______________________
Frederick, Md.: What is the extent of actual denial in Turkey, as
opposed to a dispute over language ("genocide" vs. "massacre," etc.)?
Molly Moore: The Turks don’t deny there were massive killings; they
say it was part of a civil war during the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire. They argue large numbers of Turks were killed in the same
conflict. The problem of course, is that there’s a big difference in
the definition of genocide and massacre ; and that’s where the
disagreement lies.
_______________________
Molly Moore: Thank you all very much for your excellent questions.
Many apologies to those we didn’t have time to get to this time. We
will hopefully have another chance.
_______________________
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Source: ssion/2007/10/19/DI2007101901751.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress