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Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Lower Clapton
Posts: 1,261
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Turkey/Kurdistan
If they really have invaded Kurdistan, this will be the greatest betrayal of the conflict. The Kurds are the group most likely to benefit from the removal of Saddam, and have been denied any chance of independence in previous conflicts. If this war allows Turkey to massacre/invade the Kurds, one of the much used non-WMD arguments for removing Saddam, it will completely put pay to the US/UK argument that it is a war of liberation. Since they've gone to war without sanction from most quarters, the very least they could do is protect the largest anti-Saddam group of Iraqis - those who they claim support the action. The small chance that there will be some kind of self-determination and democracy after a few years of post-war military rule is about the only positive thing likely to emerge from this. A situation in Turkey/Northern Iraq similar to Israel/Palestine would guarantee the instability in the region that the US claims to be eliminating.
Protests at Turkish mobilisation
US withdraws aid plan as Ankara claims humanitarian motive
Helena Smith in Ankara
Friday March 21, 2003
The Guardian
Turkey said yesterday it was determined to dispatch tanks and troops deep into northern Iraq, despite irate protests from Britain and the US and the threat of retaliation from Kurdish forces in the region.
The deputy prime minister, Mehmet Ali Sahin, announced Ankara's intention to flex its military muscle as parliament approved a government motion authorising troops to be sent abroad.
The long-awaited resolution also gave US warplanes the right to use Turkish airspace on missions to Iraq, although the fighter jets will not be able to refuel on Turkish soil or use the sprawling US Incirlik airbase - a decision which strained relations with Washington.
After the vote, the US ruled out reviving a economic aid package for Turkey. "There had been discussion of a package of aid for Turkey that was contingent on Turkey's... total cooperation. That did not develop," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
The US had offered $6bn (£3.8bn) in direct aid and up to $24bn (£15.4bn) in US-backed loans if Turkey allowed 62,000 troops into the country.
Mr Sahin said the government was entitled to order the intervention in northern Iraq "once parliament approves the motion". He said: "Our soldiers will cross the border only for humanitarian purposes. If there is a refugee wave towards our frontier, our plan is to stop them on the other side and accommodate them in humanitarian support centres."
Western diplomats not only questioned Ankara's legal right to cross the border but openly doubted the sincerity of its motives. Unlike the first Gulf war, when up to 500,000 hungry and impoverished Iraqi refugees fled across the border, a fraction of that number is expected this time.
In recent weeks Turkey has amassed thousands of heavily armed troops along the 205-mile frontier.
Although Turkish officials have persistently argued that any intervention would be to provide humanitarian aid, it is also viewed as a pretext to forestall a Kurdish rush for Iraqi oil fields in areas outside the autonomous region.
Ankara fears that should Iraqi Kurds seize control of the wells it would lend economic might to their dream of winning independence, although all main Kurdish parties have denied that they want either.
Iraqi Kurdish groups, meeting in Ankara, said that while local forces would resist the move with "all their might", Turkey's powerful military had presented it "as a fact of life that we will have to accept".
"We have told them that Turkish military intervention is not warranted," said Barham Salih, prime minister in the part of northern Iraq controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). "It can only complicate the transition towards a democratic federal Iraq."
A senior US official said Washington had implored its longtime Nato ally not to take the step, saying it would face the most serious consequences. "We hope they see sense."
Any aspirations Turkey might have of joining the EU would be scuppered if it unilaterally went ahead with the move, other sources said.
Even worse, the deployment raised the alarming spectre of a stand-off between Turkish and American troops. That, say analysts, could detract from efforts to topple the Baghdad regime.
While such a move was indicative of Turkey's "bunker mentality", diplomats said they feared Turkey's general staff was determined to use the US-led attack on Iraq as the best chance yet to deal with its own "Kurdish problem".
A separatist guerrilla war by Kurds in the south was quashed several years ago but Turkish officials still have vivid memories of Kurdish militants unleashing their campaign after the first Gulf war.
3.30pm update
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Turkish military denies entering northern Iraq
Staff and agencies
Saturday March 22, 2003
The Turkish military today denied reports that some 1,000 Turkish commandos crossed into northern Iraq, a military move that would likely increase tensions with Iraqi Kurds and Washington.
A military official said yesterday that soldiers in M-113 armoured personnel carriers rolled into north-eastern Iraq from near the town of Cukurca, where the borders of Turkey, Iraq and Iran converge. He said the soldiers were reinforcing several thousand Turkish troops already on the Iraqi side of the border and were not ordered to go deeper into Iraq.
Similar reports were front-page news in Turkish newspapers today and were carried on Turkish television stations throughout the night. The Turkish general staff denied the reports.
"Such news is not true and does not reflect reality," an official statement from the military said.
But it added that parliament has authorized the deployment of Turkish troops into northern Iraq.
The "Turkish armed forces has completed all its planning and is ready to implement these plans if the situation and conditions require," the statement added.
In the north-western Iraqi border town of Zakho, there were no signs of Turkish forces and no sign that Iraqi Kurds who control the area were mobilizing.
The border area, however, is mountainous and the several thousand Turkish troops already in the region are mostly in mountain areas and not near population centres.
Turkish units along the border are generally part of mobile commando units and can move quickly in and out of the border areas.
Turkey's deputy prime minister, Mehmet Ali Sahin, refused to comment on the reports of the deployment.
"It is a very sensitive issue. For the security of the country, I don't find it right to openly talk about this issue," Sahin said in an interview on private CNN-Turk television. "I can't say "yes they have entered," or "no they haven't entered."
In response to reports of a deployment, Germany threatened to withdraw its crew members from NATO surveillance planes that are protecting Turkey if Turkey had moved troops into Iraq.
Washington also strongly opposes any Turkish moves into northern Iraq.
"We don't see any need for any Turkish incursions into northern Iraq," US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said yesterday.
Mr Powell spoke after Turkey delayed opening its airspace to US warplanes for strikes against Iraq, insisting the United States agree to its demands to move troops into northern Iraq.
Turkey later dropped the demand and allowed the overflights. Scores of Turkish tanks, artillery and armoured personnel carriers were positioned near the border town of Silopi and thousands of Turkish troops were also camping 7km (4 miles) away from the Iraqi border.
The entire border area has been declared a military zone and is off limits to journalists.
Some 5,000 Turkish troops were on their way to the border area, military officials said.
Turkey fears the US-led war could lead Iraq to fragment, with northern Kurds declaring independence. That could encourage Turkey's Kurdish rebels who battled the army for 15 years, leaving 37,000 people dead.
"Turkish soldiers will go in," Turkey's foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, told reporters yesterday. He said Turkey's objectives were "Iraq's territorial integrity" and containing within Iraq any refugee flow caused by the war.
"Turkey has no designs whatsoever on Iraq's territory," he said.
Turkey has maintained several thousand soldiers backed by a few dozen tanks in northern Iraq to chase Turkish Kurdish guerrillas for years.
Turkey says Turkish Kurdish rebels have benefited from the power vacuum in northern Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War to stage hit-and-run attacks in Turkey from northern Iraq.
"This time, we will not allow such a [power] vacuum," Gul said.
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