I've posted several times about this "problem", in the past year:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...rk#post2121495
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Originally Posted by host 09-14-2006
....The pre-invasion plan had left Iraq as the stabalizing presence in it's region that blocked what we see emerging now. You probably aren't aware that Kurds seriously intend to pursue an attempt to create an independent state that includes 25 percent of Turkey....a vast area north of Kurdish northern Iraq....any Turk who you ask, will confirm that....
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Several background articles in this post: (#29)
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...rk#post2184138
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Originally Posted by host
....Do you know any Turks, powerclown? The few who I know who were born in turkey and emigrated to the US will tell you that the kurds do not only want the area in northern iraq as an independent state. They also comprise a population of 12 million in turkey who want to annex all of southeastern turkey.
There has been no progress since the radio free Europe article from 17 months ago, and reports from 4 months ago show a political battle between the powerful secular turkish military leaders and the pro mulsim government of the turkish prime minister.
The current state of affairs offers no chance for what you hope can happen, as any turk will probably tell you. Politically, the US does not have time for such a dream to come true, and admission into the European commonwealth is not nearly enough of a carrot to put aside the political, ethnic, and religious issues that will make a turkish military move against any newly declared independent kurdish state a foregone conclusion....
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...and from post #31, on the same page....
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Originally Posted by host
The two turks who I have had frank discussions with seem reasonable, naturalized American citizens in every way, and they have been muslims in name only, until the post 9/11 political climate in the US made them more conscious and concerned about anti-muslim sentiment. As shi'a they do not worship in a mosque, due to a tradition that began in the 8th century when Ali was stabbed in the back of the neck by an assassin named Omar, his head bowed in prayer, in a mosque.
<h3>Both of my turkish friends are unwavering in their denial of armenian genocide.
They dismiss it as a post WWI victor's tale against the defeated ottomans. One of these guys gets angry and agitated when the subject is raised.</h3>
This news especially bothered both of them:
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4994434.stm
Thursday, 18 May 2006, 14:37 GMT 15:37 UK
French MPs shelve 'genocide' vote
The French parliament has postponed debate on a bill that would make it a crime to deny that the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 was "genocide".
Turkish officials and businesses had lobbied French MPs to shelve the bill, which relates to a thorny issue still plaguing Turkish-Armenian relations.
Turkey rejects Armenia's claim that the Ottoman Turks killed 1.5m Armenians.....
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....two days ago, one of my Turkish friends told me that the Turkish amabassador to the US had been recalled over the genocide resolution vote....he muttered about the US hypocrisy....he said this declaration, coming from a country that committed genocide against the native American population, completing the US domestic genocidal campaign just 20 years before the 1915 Armenian "conflict"....This guy became a US citizen, shortly before 9/11....he's in shock over the new attitude towards Muslims in the US, and by the rise of the influence of religious fundamentalists in the governments of the US and Turkey...he cannot distinguish the extremism of either politicized religious movement, but he is more confident that it will be turned back in Turkey...by their military intervening, than he is that politicized Christian evangelicals will be turned back, in the US.
IMO, the timing of the US resolution on Turks committing genocide, could not be worse. The Turks are in total denial, but the US fails to appreciate the delicate political balance today in Turkey. Both the religiousized government and it's opposing military leaders have increasing, equal incentive to appear tough on the Kurdish threat, before the court of opinion of non-Kurdish Turks, and...with the Turks' extreme attitude of denial on the Armenian issue, our congress pours gasoline on the fire. Turkey was our best hope for relations with a secular Muslim, westernized country. The Turks knew that the US did not take it's concerns seriously enough when the US aligned itself with the Kurds in nothern Iraq, and then unilaterally destroyed Saddam's government without enough consideration of the consequences....for the Turks.... of an Iraq in disarray. The real damage was caused by removing the regional stabilization effected by Saddam's regime, and the only palatable way to execute an Armenian genocide resolution, would have been after a native American genocide resolution.....