Jigs
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Wednesday, July 7, 2010
SEVİL KÜÇÜKKOŞUM
ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News
Speculation about a possible cross-border military operation into northern Iraq has deepened debate over the best way to counter terror activity and threatens to widen rifts domestically and internationally.
“The U.S. does not want to diminish the political and military power of the Iraqi [Regional] Kurdish Administration by allowing any Turkish military operations in this region,” retired Maj. Gen. Armağan Kuloğlu told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Wednesday.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry is in a “diplomatic push” directed at the United States, the European Union and northern Iraq since the recent surge in attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a ministry official told the Daily News, without commenting on the potential for a cross-border operation.
The idea of a military push into northern Iraq has become a topic of hot debate in the wake of statements by Turkey’s top general, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ, who harshly criticized officials in northern Iraq for creating a “safe haven” for the PKK.
“It is obvious that Iraq has no intention of fighting against the PKK and the Regional Kurdish Administration rules out a military operation by Turkey, criticizing its every attempt,” said Kuloğlu.
The type of pressure the Turkish government is applying now in seeking assistance in its fight against the PKK, which has bases in northern Iraq, was successful in the late 1990s in getting Syria to end its support for the outlawed group and expel PKK leaders who had been harboring there, including now-imprisoned PKK chief Abdullah Öcalan. But though the two situations are frequently compared by many experts and politicians, there are some key differences.
“It is not easy to implement the same thing in northern Iraq,” Kuloğlu said. “The Soviet Union was not backing Syria anymore and there was no power supporting Syria when Turkey threatened to conduct a military operation. But the situation is different for Iraq, since the U.S. is backing this country.”
According to Fikret Bila, the Ankara representative for daily Milliyet, Turkey presented three options to Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani when he visited Ankara last month: take unilateral action against the PKK in northern Iraq; let the trilateral mechanism set up by Turkey, Iraq and the U.S. take action; or see Turkey carry out “military-power-backed diplomacy,” which would result in large-scale unilateral military action against PKK hideouts in northern Iraq.
The PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, is believed to have some 5,000 members in the mountainous border region.
The prospect of a military operation threatens to irreversibly harm Turkey’s relations with its own Kurdish population – and deepen the rift between the government and the military – according to Hasip Kaplan, Şırnak deputy of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP.
“The General Staff resorting to military means will create big trauma in relations between Kurds and Turks,” he told the Daily News. “It is not the army’s but the government’s duty to solve the Kurdish problem. If the General Staff, which operates under the Prime Ministry, decides to apply military means, then it ignores Parliament and the government itself. Do they want to spark that fire again?”
Other opposition parties, however, support the move. “We are already late for an operation,” Devlet Bahçeli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, told reporters. “We should have done it much earlier.”
Even if Turkey can resolve the internal rift, it is unlikely to get support for a military move from its U.S. ally, experts said. “The U.S. will satisfy Turkey’s expectations up to a point, but it will avoid offending Iraqi Kurds. The U.S. will try to find a balanced way to respond to Turkey’s demands,” Kuloğlu said, noting that the previous U.S. administration had agreed to provide Turkey with actionable intelligence in 2007 but asked in return for “further integration between Turkey and the northern Iraqi leadership.”
Ali Nihat Özcan, an expert on terrorism, has predicted that Washington might allow Turkey to conduct a small-scale operation to ease public tensions in Turkey. “But it won’t allow the comprehensive military operation that would put an end to the PKK in northern Iraq,” he told the Daily News on Wednesday.
In a statement Tuesday, Interior Minister Beşir Atalay urged neighboring countries not to close their eyes to the presence of terrorists in their territories, hinting at the Turkish government’s growing disturbance at the mounting terror campaign.
SEVİL KÜÇÜKKOŞUM
ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News
Speculation about a possible cross-border military operation into northern Iraq has deepened debate over the best way to counter terror activity and threatens to widen rifts domestically and internationally.
“The U.S. does not want to diminish the political and military power of the Iraqi [Regional] Kurdish Administration by allowing any Turkish military operations in this region,” retired Maj. Gen. Armağan Kuloğlu told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Wednesday.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry is in a “diplomatic push” directed at the United States, the European Union and northern Iraq since the recent surge in attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a ministry official told the Daily News, without commenting on the potential for a cross-border operation.
The idea of a military push into northern Iraq has become a topic of hot debate in the wake of statements by Turkey’s top general, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ, who harshly criticized officials in northern Iraq for creating a “safe haven” for the PKK.
“It is obvious that Iraq has no intention of fighting against the PKK and the Regional Kurdish Administration rules out a military operation by Turkey, criticizing its every attempt,” said Kuloğlu.
The type of pressure the Turkish government is applying now in seeking assistance in its fight against the PKK, which has bases in northern Iraq, was successful in the late 1990s in getting Syria to end its support for the outlawed group and expel PKK leaders who had been harboring there, including now-imprisoned PKK chief Abdullah Öcalan. But though the two situations are frequently compared by many experts and politicians, there are some key differences.
“It is not easy to implement the same thing in northern Iraq,” Kuloğlu said. “The Soviet Union was not backing Syria anymore and there was no power supporting Syria when Turkey threatened to conduct a military operation. But the situation is different for Iraq, since the U.S. is backing this country.”
According to Fikret Bila, the Ankara representative for daily Milliyet, Turkey presented three options to Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani when he visited Ankara last month: take unilateral action against the PKK in northern Iraq; let the trilateral mechanism set up by Turkey, Iraq and the U.S. take action; or see Turkey carry out “military-power-backed diplomacy,” which would result in large-scale unilateral military action against PKK hideouts in northern Iraq.
The PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, is believed to have some 5,000 members in the mountainous border region.
The prospect of a military operation threatens to irreversibly harm Turkey’s relations with its own Kurdish population – and deepen the rift between the government and the military – according to Hasip Kaplan, Şırnak deputy of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP.
“The General Staff resorting to military means will create big trauma in relations between Kurds and Turks,” he told the Daily News. “It is not the army’s but the government’s duty to solve the Kurdish problem. If the General Staff, which operates under the Prime Ministry, decides to apply military means, then it ignores Parliament and the government itself. Do they want to spark that fire again?”
Other opposition parties, however, support the move. “We are already late for an operation,” Devlet Bahçeli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, told reporters. “We should have done it much earlier.”
Even if Turkey can resolve the internal rift, it is unlikely to get support for a military move from its U.S. ally, experts said. “The U.S. will satisfy Turkey’s expectations up to a point, but it will avoid offending Iraqi Kurds. The U.S. will try to find a balanced way to respond to Turkey’s demands,” Kuloğlu said, noting that the previous U.S. administration had agreed to provide Turkey with actionable intelligence in 2007 but asked in return for “further integration between Turkey and the northern Iraqi leadership.”
Ali Nihat Özcan, an expert on terrorism, has predicted that Washington might allow Turkey to conduct a small-scale operation to ease public tensions in Turkey. “But it won’t allow the comprehensive military operation that would put an end to the PKK in northern Iraq,” he told the Daily News on Wednesday.
In a statement Tuesday, Interior Minister Beşir Atalay urged neighboring countries not to close their eyes to the presence of terrorists in their territories, hinting at the Turkish government’s growing disturbance at the mounting terror campaign.
