turkey, armenia, iraq yikes. - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 10-12-2007, 08:44 AM

ok so this is a curious turn of events.
for a few weeks now, turkey has been massing its military (strange alliteration) on the northern border of iraq, claiming that the kurdish pkk has been launching attacks into turkey from iraq. this build up has been happening for some time now, but up to this point the turkish government has been persuaded by the americans not to go beyond a buildup. but--again (important for what follows) this is not something that is just now, all of a sudden, starting to happen.

on wednesday (i think) the house foreign relations committee passed a resolution that declared the 1915 turkish massacres of its armenian populations to have been genocide.

====
if you dont know the backstory, here is a page on the armenian genocide (framed as such)
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/

and here a bbc article on the general turkish position concerning 1915:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6386625.stm

caveat--the english language web-presence on this issue is heavily oriented around 1915 as genocide. i dont read turkish--if anyone has links to sites that represent the turkish position better than the bbc article, please post as it stands, i find this position a bit incomprehensible)
==================

the other complexity: relations between turkey and the kurdish population:
here is a short summary, from a blog (i know, i know...)

http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=vi...&language_id=1
================================

anyway, on wednesday the house frc passes a largely symbolic resolution declaring 1915 to have been genocide.
the turkish government flips its shit.
here's an nyt article over the flap itself:

Quote:

Turks Angry Over House Armenian Genocide Vote
By SEBNEM ARSU

ISTANBUL, Oct. 11 — Turkey reacted angrily Thursday to a House committee vote in Washington to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey that began during World War I, recalling its ambassador from Washington and threatening to withdraw its support for the Iraq war.

In uncharacteristically strong language, President Abdullah Gul criticized the vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee in a statement to the semi-official Anatolian News Agency, and warned that the decision could work against the United States.

“Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more dismissed calls for common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor domestic political games,” President Gul said.

The House vote comes at a particularly inopportune time. Washington has called on Turkey to show restraint as its military mobilizes on the border with Iraq, threatening an incursion against Kurdish insurgents. On Thursday, Turkish warplanes were reported to be flying close to the border, but not crossing it.

The possibility of Turkish military intervention in Iraq against Kurdish separatists has long worried American officials for its potential to ignite a wider war. On Wednesday, the Turkish government began the process of gaining parliamentary approval to conduct cross-border operations.

The committee vote in the House, though nonbinding and largely symbolic, rebuffed an intense campaign by the White House and earlier warnings from Turkey’s government that such a vote would gravely strain relations with the United States.

In Washington, the Bush administration tried to ease the hard feelings between the countries, and vowed to try to defeat the resolution on Capitol Hill.

“One of the reasons we opposed the resolution in the House yesterday is that the president has expressed on behalf of the American people our horror at the tragedy of 1915,” said Dana Perino, President Bush’s chief spokeswoman. “But at the same time, we have national security concerns, and many of our troops and supplies go through Turkey. They are a very important ally in the war on terror, and we are going to continue to try to work with them. And we hope that the House does not put forward a full vote.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would definitely take up the measure. “I said if it comes out of committee, it will go to the floor,” she told reporters. “Now it has come out of committee, and it will go to the floor.”

In Turkey, there was widespread expectation that the House committee vote and any further steps would damage relations between the countries.

Turkish officials and lawmakers warned that if the resolution were approved by the full House, they would reconsider supporting the American war effort in Iraq, which includes permission to ship essential supplies through Turkey from a major air base at Incirlik, in southern Turkey.

Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, refused to say what effect the resolution might have on American access to the base, but he did not exclude the possibility of a policy change. “This step is contrary to the U.S. interests,” he said on Thursday, “and is an unfortunate decision taken by those who cannot acknowledge Turkey’s position.”

Already the top Turkish naval commander, Adm. Metin Atac, canceled a trip to the United States for a conference after Wednesday’s vote, an American Embassy official confirmed. Admiral Atac’s office did not specify any reasons for the cancellation.

For his part, Ross Wilson, the United States ambassador to Turkey, also tried to calm relations, issuing a statement on Thursday saying that the partnership between Turkey and the United States was strong and would remain so. He added that he, President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regretted the committee decision.

He was nonetheless later summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Ankara, the capital, to be briefed on Turkey’s disappointment.

“We had a meeting with Mr. Wilson during which we expressed our concerns about the developments,” said a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry. “We drew attention to bad reflections on our bilateral relations and kindly requested his assistance in preventing the passage of the bill.”

The House decision prompted reaction on the streets of Ankara and Istanbul. The youth branch of the extreme-leftist Workers’ Party laid a black wreath at the United States Embassy and spray-painted the Turkish flag onto an embassy wall.

A total of 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the Armenian genocide, which began in 1915 as part of a systematic campaign by the fraying Ottoman Empire to drive Armenians out of eastern Turkey. Turks have vehemently denied the genocide designation, while acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died. They contend that the deaths resulted from the war that ended with the creation of modern Turkey in 1923.

Identifying Armenian killings as genocide is considered an insult against Turkish identity, a crime under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code.

In an Istanbul court on Thursday, Sarkis Seropyan and Arat Dink, the brother of Hrant Dink, the newspaper editor who was killed by a 17-year-old gunman in January, received suspended jail sentences for one year for violating that law. They reprinted other newspaper accounts of Hrant Dink’s statement saying that Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Army in the 1910s, their lawyer, Fethiye Cetin, said.

Not only writers of Armenian origin, but also the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk have been charged under the same law, although his case was dropped under heavy international pressure.

A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said that United States diplomats were reaching out to their Turkish counterparts to express not only their opposition to the resolution but “our commitment with Congress on this to see that the full House, in fact, votes to defeat this resolution.”

Mr. Casey said that State Department and White House officials would try to persuade “various members” of the House on how to vote.

Ms. Pelosi said that she did not have a date in mind for bringing the issue to the floor, but that it would be brought up this session, which is to end around Nov. 16. Whatever happens, she insisted, relations between the United States and Turkey will remain

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/wo...=1&oref=slogin

and here a guardian article from this morning that outlines the linkages between this resolution and the situation on the northern border of iraq:

Quote:

Turkey ready to face criticism over Iraq

Mark Tran and agencies
Friday October 12, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Turkey is prepared to pay the diplomatic price for any attack on Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said today.

Amid fears that a Turkish incursion would destabilise one of the few relatively peaceful regions in Iraq, Mr Erdogan said the government was becoming impatient after a series of rebel attacks, and was making preparations in case a cross-border strike was deemed necessary.

"There could be pros and cons of such a decision but what is important is our country's interests," Mr Erdogan told reporters in response to a question about the international repercussions of such a decision.

Turkey has lost 30 people in rebel attacks over the past two weeks, sparking military calls for an incursion into northern Iraq, a prospect that disturbs the US, which sees the area as one of the few success stories in the Iraq quagmire.

In the latest reported violence, a Turkish soldier was killed in a mine explosion last night on Mt Gabar, in the south-eastern Sirnak province, where 13 soldiers have been ambushed and killed over the past week.

In an intriguing twist to the latest border tensions, rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) said they were moving back into Turkey from northern Iraq.

The PKK, which says it has an estimated 3,000 men, also warned in a statement that it would target Mr Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development party (AK) and the main opposition Republican People's party (CHP).

Should the PKK move north, it could defuse diplomatic tension by obviating the need for any cross-border raid. But it would make the rebels more vulnerable to Turkish military action.

Mr Erdogan's government has decided to seek approval from parliament next week for a major military operation in northern Iraq. Speaking outside a mosque in Istanbul after Friday prayers, Mr Erdogan said he wanted to secure parliament's approval now to avoid delay in future should a cross-border operation be decided upon.

The PKK, much weakened since its heyday in the 1990s, has called several ceasefires over the years, the last one in 2006. But there has been an upsurge in fighting in recent weeks.

Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed struggle for a homeland in south-east Turkey in 1984.

The US has urged Turkey to refrain from any action that may jeopardise stability in Kurdish Iraq, but its task has been complicated by congressional moves to recognise as genocide the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the first world war - a charge Turkey vehemently denies.

Turkey recalled its ambassador from the US "for consultations" after a congressional committee approved the non-binding genocide resolution, which is expected to go the full House of Representatives in the next few weeks.

http://media.fastclick.net/w/get.med...%2C00.html&d=f

got it?

personally, my initial (and still dominant) response has been "wtf?"

the situation is kinda insane now.

now the bush people opposed the hfc action because they were afraid that it'd get linked to the situation on the northern border--and in this--and i am feel almost dirty saying it--they were right.

but:

a. the ottoman action against its armenian population seems to me to hve been clearly genocidal---but turkey is not the ottoman empire---the ottomans lost in world war 1 (therefore genocide becomes an operative category) while turkey has not lost a war lately (therefore "ethnic cleansing" or some other equally repellent term)--because it seems that genocide is only genocide if the folk who carry it out lost a war (think the us extermination of the native american population--what do you call that?)

but this is equally true, and has been, for a long time.

b. because this resolution passed, turkey withdrew its ambassador from the us...so the americans have for the time being lost their ability t pressure turkey to not do anything

and now turkey is doing the saber rattle thing, invoking bushworld's foundational discourse of "terrorism" to justify military action against the kurds in northern iraq.

this could become very ugly very quickly.
i cant help but think that the hfc was kinda irresponsible to pass this resolution at this particular moment. but even this is not so easy, because i endorse the contents of the resolution.
i am bewildered---beyond that really---by turkey's response, which seems completely out of whack with the situation at hand. but it is also clear that the government of turkey IS this offended AND that they have been sort of waiting for the chance to do something against kurdistan.

this puts the americans in a truly bad position.
what happens if this goes past dick waving?
the americans end up fighting turkey to defend the kurds in a country it invaded?

what do you make of this chaos?

Willravel · 10-12-2007, 09:10 AM

Our chaos is spilling over? I can't say I'm surprised. As for the genocide, it happened and denying it is rather horrible, but you're right in that a government that's long since passed was responsible, not the turks specifically.

The US thinks that Turkey is thinking about getting directly involved and is threatened because we're already losing and it's already chaos in most regions. If Turkey starts hoping across the border to shit on the Kurds who can't keep to themselves, then it will potentially get all the worse still. The realty, as I see it, though, is that Turkey is local, well organized, and is familiar with the type of desert warfare that we weren't prepared for. Instead of antagonizing them, we should be asking them for help.

highthief · 10-12-2007, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

b. because this resolution passed, turkey withdrew its ambassador from the us...so the americans have for the time being lost their ability t pressure turkey to not do anything

and now turkey is doing the saber rattle thing, invoking bushworld's foundational discourse of "terrorism" to justify military action against the kurds in northern iraq.

what do you make of this chaos?

Maybe that's the desired outcome. turkey can go wreck house with the Kurds, and the US - claiming a lack of diplomatic and military relations in the wake of the genocide thing - can withdraw somewhat gracefully.

Crazy, I know?

roachboy · 10-12-2007, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Kurdish rebels try to head off Ankara offensive

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Friday October 12, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The main Kurdish rebel group, the PKK, tried to deflect a Turkish attack into its bases in northern Iraq by today claiming it was redeploying into Turkey.

Such a tactic would remove the main reason for the Turkish government to mount a cross-border attack into Iraqi Kurdistan.

But the government in Ankara is likely to treat the PKK statement with scepticism: such a redeployment could leave the PKK vulnerable to the Turkish forces massed along the border.

Article continues

The US government was today seeking to try to persuade Turkey against military action that could destabilise one of the few relatively peaceful regions in Iraq.

The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, kept up the bellicose rhetoric today, claiming the country was ready to pay any price for a military incursion, including jeopardising relations with the US.

The Turkish parliament is set to vote next week to give approval to the government to launch an attack. Mr Erdogan said: "If such an option is chosen, whatever its price, it will be paid."

The Turkish government and military want to move against PKK bases because of the rising death toll from attacks.

The PKK, classed as a terrorist group by the US and the European Union, is fighting for autonomy for Turkey's Kurdish population.

Reflecting the deterioration in US-Turkish relations this week, Mr Erdogan said Turkey did not need Washington's permission to attack PKK bases.

"Did they (the US) seek permission from anyone when they came from a distance of 10,000km and hit Iraq?" he said. "We do not need anyone else's advice."

He added: "We are making necessary preparations to be ready in case we decide on a cross-border operation since we don't have patience to lose more time."

The PKK statement published today taunted the Turkish government by insisting it would continue to attack government targets, including politicians.

But it portrayed its offensive as Turkish rather than Iraqi-based: "The source of this war is in north Kurdistan (eastern Turkey) ... the guerrillas are not moving to the south (northern Iraq); on the contrary they are moving to ... places in the north."

US-Turkish relations have been strained by a Congressional resolution this week potraying the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1917 as genocide.

The resolution was passed by a House of Representatives committee and is due to go to a full vote of the House and Senate.

As well as an attack into Iraq, Turkey could cancel defence contracts with the US and deny the US use of its ports and air space - an important route into Iraq.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/sto...190131,00.html

this is an interesting twist...

host · 10-12-2007, 07:05 PM

I've posted several times about this "problem", in the past year:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...rk#post2121495

Quote:

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....

Several background articles in this post: (#29)
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...rk#post2184138

Quote:

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....

...and from post #31, on the same page....

Quote:

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:
Quote:

Quote:

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.....

....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.....

Elphaba · 10-12-2007, 08:06 PM

host, I have been trying to understand why this pointless position was brought to a vote today. These things don't happen without some cause or intent in mind, but I can't make any sense of it.

Turkey is an important ally in the region, but it is also threatening the Iraqi border. My "follow the money" cynacism tells me that the US is willing to give up an important ally, if Kurdish oil wells might be at risk.

Your thoughts?

host · 10-13-2007, 01:00 AM

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...05Jan29_2.html

...Kirkuk's last census was conducted nearly 50 years ago -- in 1957 -- when Iraq was still a monarchy. It determined that Kirkuk was 40 percent Turkmen and 35 percent Kurdish, with the remainder divided among Arabs, Jews, Assyrians and Armenians. But the displacement of Kurds, the influx of Arabs under Hussein and the absence of accurate population data leave Kirkuk's present makeup in dispute....

Good, detailed background, here, Elphalba....my friend has impressed upon me that Turkey regards Kirkuk as a part of Turkey because of claims from the days when it was part of the Ottoman Empire that dissolved with the Turkish defeat in WWI, the large Kirkuk ethnic Turk population, and the large oil deposits are an added incentive...Kirkuk is south of the Kurd controlled area of Northern iraq....it's location probably makes it impossible that it will ever be reunited with Turkey....

Quote:

http://www.slate.com/id/2080461/

Kurd Sellout Watch, Day 18Here come the Turks.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, March 20, 2003, at 4:25 PM ET....

I can't stress enough how taking down Saddam and killing his heirs, too...sets that region on a course of slow motion destruction, along with it's vast oil reserves. That region had gone from hundreds of years peaceful of Ottoman control...to British authority in 1919. In 1920, Gertrude Bell drew a new map that defined the new Iraq's borders. The British correctly assessed the limitations....the Kurds needed to be seperate from the new Turkey....Turkey would not tolerate a seperate Kurdish state....the Shi'a majority was incapable of ruling....the best way to protect the Kurdish and Sunni minorities from the Shi'a was to put one of the cunning and resourceful Sunni minority in charge. That power equation lasted until Bush toppled Saddam, 81 years later. Only a new Sunni led government will keep Tureky and Iran out of Iraq. That can only be achieved by Sunni violence, and Sunnis are trying.

....but the Turks and Kurds have been an ongoing problem....

Quote:

http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/it...urst_bell.html

....Coda
Political strife in Iraq did not settle down after the coronation. In 1923 Shia divines in the south began to stir up trouble and were shipped off to Persia. The areas east of Erbil, Kifri and Kirkuk were causing headaches for the adminis-trators in Baghdad. The Kurds in the north were kicking up trouble. And, finally, the Turks were ejected along the northern border later that year. But the reign of the Hashemites lasted until 1958, when Faisal's grandson and family were assassinated.....

Turkish Government defense against genocide charge:
http://goturkey.turizm.gov.tr/BelgeG...C077A9979C33C4

Report from German magazine on the background of the US legislative committee vote:

Quote:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...511210,00.html
October 12, 2007

ARMENIAN LOBBY'S TRIUMPH
Genocide Resolution Risks Shattering Relations with Turkey

By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Washington

......The fact that it has now been approved is a triumph for the "Armenian Lobby," if you want to call them that. Around 1.2 million Americans have Armenian forefathers and many of them grew up listening to the tales of the suffering of their people.

Armenian-Americans are particularly active in California, New Jersey and Michigan -- which happens to be the constituency of Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House. Her Californian colleague Adam Schiff, who promoted the resolution, has the issue to thank for his own political career. His predecessor in the constituency lost his seat when he failed to push through the resolution in 2000.

Armenian groups have been bombarding their representatives over the past few years with an unusually massive PR drive. Their most important umbrella group "Armenian Assembly of America" has 10,000 members and an annual budget of over $3.5 million. It employs four different influential PR firms in Washington to keep the suffering of the Armenians on the agenda in the US capital.

The Turkish government couldn't do enough to counter them, even though for years it has invested millions of dollars in presenting its arguments. Ankara engaged prominent former representatives like Republican Bob Livingston, who even produced his own video in which he argued against unnecessarily damaging relations with Turkey. And he said that Turkey was still an important symbol of how a Muslim society can build democratic structures.

In the complicated intertwining of minority representation in the US, many Americans with Armenian roots also say the approval of the resolution as a sign that they have arrived in the center of American society. They compare their lobby work with the success of the Jewish lobby in the US, which has anchored the commemoration of the Holocaust in Americans' collective memor........

Former California governor, a republican is the son of Armenian parents from Iran:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Deukmejian

ASU2003 · 10-13-2007, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

personally, my initial (and still dominant) response has been "wtf?"

the situation is kinda insane now.

That has been my reaction too. This happened 90+ years ago. Nobody that carried it out is still alive.

Why doesn't the UN/Turkey/Iran/China or whatever country pass some resolution saying that the US committed genocide against the Indians/Native Americans 200 years ago. They probably don't even need to go back 20 years to find examples of us committing genocide.

Hell, I wouldn't even support a resolution saying that Germany committed genocide against Jewish people. It happened 60 years ago. It is past history, you can't change it.

WHY DON"T THEY DEAL WITH WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW?

It's not like there isn't any genocide going on in Sudan, Myamar, or Iraq...

Elphaba · 10-13-2007, 01:48 PM

Thank you, host, for the information you have provided.

Locobot · 10-17-2007, 10:11 PM

Regarding the Turkish troops massing at the border: the U.S. needs to show a little more backbone here. Iraqi Kurds don't seem to hold much sway with the central government and even if they did, any deployment of the Iraqi army would be indistinguishable from U.S. forces (same uniforms, equipment, officers etc.). The U.S. should make clear that any incursion into Northern Iraq will not be tolerated and will result in Turkey being immediately expelled from NATO. Having two NATO countries in open conflict would undermine the premise of that treaty and make it meaningless. Turkey sees the Iraqi Kurds as being in a weak position and they think the U.S. forces are stretched too thin to retaliate. They're in a position to make an opportunistic land grab in Northern Iraq. On the other hand the Kurdish separatist PKK is almost certainly using Kurd-controlled Northern Iraq as a launching pad for terrorist attacks. It's a conundrum.

highthief · 10-19-2007, 06:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locobot

The U.S. should make clear that any incursion into Northern Iraq will not be tolerated and will result in Turkey being immediately expelled from NATO. Having two NATO countries in open conflict would undermine the premise of that treaty and make it meaningless.

Can the US do that? It's NATO, not USA, and Iraq ain't NATO, nor USA.

roachboy · 10-19-2007, 07:25 AM

the story at this point:
so the turkish legislature took this opportunity to approve military incursions into northern iraq, but didnt attach a particular timetable to it.
diplomatic contact between the us and turkey seems to me ongoing, but not via the usual channels so far as i know--i havent seen anything about the turkish ambassador to the united states coming back to the states.
meanwhile, support for the resolution passed a week ago by the house foreign relations committee appears to be collapsing.
the pkk claim (article bit above) that they have moved or are moving their bases of operations into turkey remains out there, floating in space.

meanwhile, in northern iraq:

Quote:

Iraqi Kurds march for peace as raids by Turkey loom

· Direct talks urged to avert army strike on PKK rebels
· Turkish leaders defiant amid foreign criticism

Michael Howard in Dohuk
Friday October 19, 2007
The Guardian

Thousands of protesters, including many school students, took to the streets of Iraqi Kurdistan yesterday to denounce Turkey's decision to allow its generals to cross into northern Iraq to hunt down fighters of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), which it accuses of carrying out attacks in Turkey from bases in Iraq.

The rallies in the cities of Dohuk and the regional capital Irbil came as Kurdish leaders urged direct talks with Ankara over the PKK issue, to try to stave off a military operation in their region which, they warned, "would be detrimental to all Iraq, to Turkey and the Middle East".

In the bustling northern city of Dohuk, 50 miles from the Turkish border, about 2,000 protesters marched through the provincial capital, calling for peace and appealing to the US and the UN for protection. Students in the city's high schools were given the morning off to take part. Marchers sang patriotic songs and carried Kurdish flags and banners proclaiming "We want peace, not bombs".

"We are not supporting the PKK. They have a fight with Turkey and it is not our fight," said Shwan Abdullah, 15. "If the army comes in, they may never leave."

Others protested at the shelling by Turkey this week of villages on the Iraqi side of the border, following a recent spate of killings in Turkey by alleged PKK rebels.

In Irbil, about 5,000 demonstrators marched to the UN compound to demand intervention by the UN security council. "We don't think of Turkey as an enemy, we do a lot of trade with them," said Muhammad Faid, a local businessmen. But, he asked: "Is their real target the PKK, or to crush the progress we Kurds have made here in Iraq?"

Despite the insistence of the Turkish prime minister, Recep Erdogan, that an invasion of northern Iraq was not imminent, Iraq's Kurds fear the threat of a military intervention could jeopardise their hard-won stability and growing prosperity.

Turkish MPs granted the army a one-year window in which to conduct cross-border operations against the PKK.

Ankara accuses Iraq's Kurds of assisting the PKK, and says that neither the government in Baghdad nor the US are serious about ousting the rebel group from Iraq. In Baghdad, the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, demanded that the PKK leave Iraqi territory "as soon as possible", saying they were there "without the approval of the Iraqi government or the government of the Kurdish region".

Wednesday's vote by Turkish MPs has so far met with opprobrium from much of the international community, including the UN, the EU, the US and Russia. Only Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, who must also deal with a restive Kurdish population, has publicly offered support.

Turkey's leaders, however, remained defiant yesterday. "Turkey is implementing the same international rules that were implemented by those who linked the attacks on the twin towers to some organisations" and sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq on that basis, said the justice minister, Mehmet ali Sahin, in a swipe at the Bush administration. "That's why no one has the right to say anything."

Safeen Dizayee, a senior official with the Kurdistan Democratic party, led by the regional president Massoud Barzani, said Turkey had "legitimate concerns" about the upsurge in attacks by the PKK on Turkish soil, but allowing Ankara's troops to cross into Iraq was not the answer. "It is time to start an honest dialogue with Turkey to establish a common understanding on how to solve this problem without the constant violations of Iraqi sovereignty."

Ankara, however, refuses to recognise the Kurds' regional government, saying it will talk only to Baghdad, whose power to effect changes in Kurdistan without the Kurds' say-so is negligible.

http://media.fastclick.net/w/get.med...%2C00.html&d=f

and this from todays ny times offers a more geopolitically oriented take on the situation as it currently stands:

Quote:

October 19, 2007
Turkish Bid to Pursue Kurds Poses Quandary for Iraq
By ALISSA J. RUBIN

BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 — Turkey’s decision to allow the dispatch of troops over Iraq’s border in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas throws into relief a troubling quandary for Iraq’s leaders.

On one hand, Iraq wants a cordial relationship with Turkey, a powerhouse in the region and a counterweight to the competing pulls of Iran and Saudi Arabia.

But Iraq has been able to do little to halt the rebel group’s activities because Iraq’s central government must rely on its ethnic Kurdish minority, which populates the region where the guerrillas are active, to take a stand against them.

Another factor complicating matters for the Iraqi government is that the Qandil mountains of the border region with Turkey are among the most rugged areas in the Middle East, and the area has never been fully under any government control.

Iraq’s Kurdish region has been semi-autonomous since 1991 and controls its own armed forces, which also patrol the border with Turkey. All ethnic Kurds, they are reluctant to fight the rebels because it means fighting brother Kurds, with whom they are generally sympathetic.

The guerrillas are ethnic Kurds who come primarily from Turkey and speak Turkish. The rebel group, known by its Turkish initials P.K.K., has an estimated 3,000 fighters in the mountains of northwest Iraq, from which they carry out attacks on Turkey. In the past, the rebel group has aspired to have an autonomous state in Turkey, though it is unclear exactly what the group’s demands are now.

While the Kurds in northern Iraq are not thought to participate in the activities of the Turkish rebel group, neither have they sought vigorously to eradicate the rebels — in part because it would be tantamount to going after their own. “The P.K.K. members are Kurds just as we are,” said Rebwar Karem, 31, a student at Sulaimaniya University on Thursday. “The state of Turkey hates the Kurds so while we don’t respect the armed struggle of the Kurds in Turkey, I’m against anyone who orders them to leave” the Kurdish area of Iraq.

At a protest on Thursday in Erbil, marchers carried signs that swore allegiance to Kurds, wherever they might be in the region. “Kurdistan is one and all Kurds are pesh merga,” said one sign, a reference to Kurdish fighters.

In a statement on Wednesday the Kurdistan Regional Government affirmed its opposition to the rebel group’s violent acts but warned Turkey not to tell the Kurds how to run their affairs. “We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Turkey, and we expect the same in return,” it said. The regional government “condemns the killing of innocent people in Turkey and does not believe that violence solves any problem,” the statement said.

Western officials say that neither Iraq’s Kurds nor the central government has much of an incentive to act vigorously against the guerrillas. “The Iraqi government would like P.K.K. to go away, but when you’re in Baghdad, that stuff seems very far away,” said an American official who is familiar with the region, but who refused to be quoted by name because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. “As for the Kurdistan Regional Government, I don’t get any sense of fondness in domestic Kurdish politics for the P.K.K., but the idea of taking action against fellow Kurds is anathema.”

The official added that the Kurdistan Regional Government looked at the situation pragmatically. The Iraqi Kurds have other concerns, like attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents, especially in places like the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, where there is a struggle for control. “The P.K.K. isn’t the first thing that come to their mind. It’s the bombings in Sulaimaniya and Kirkuk and their argument is, ‘Yes the P.K.K. is killing Turks, but are they an existential threat to Turkey? No. Are they going to bring down the Turkish government? No.’”

None of that, however, is much comfort to the Turks. Several thousand have died since the early 1980s when the rebel group was formed. The latest rebel attack in Turkey on Oct. 7 killed 13 Turkish soldiers. A measure of Kurdish reluctance in northern Iraq to judge fellow Kurds is that several Kurds explained in interviews that killing Turkish soldiers was a defensible action.

“The P.K.K. is killing Turkish soldiers in Kurdish villages,” said an Iraqi official who is an ethnic Kurd and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was expressing a personal opinion. “I hate to imagine what Turkish soldiers would do in a Kurdish village,” he said, adding, “Many Kurds would see that as an act of self-defense.”

The official Iraqi position is far more modulated. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has called for talks with Turkey, and Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi traveled to Istanbul on Wednesday to extend an olive branch to the Turks. In an interview broadcast on several Iraqi television stations late on Thursday, the country’s foreign minister, who happens to be a Kurd, used carefully diplomatic language. “The P.K.K. should leave Iraq,” said Hoshyar Zebari in a brief interview, but added, “The Iraqi government is uncomfortable with the decision of the Turkish government to send troops to northern Iraq.”

Mr. Zebari, like many Iraqi Kurds, finds himself with divided loyalties. While the Kurds of northern Iraq have thrown in their lot with the country’s central government and say they want to be part of a united Iraqi state, their loyalty to fellow Kurds runs deep — and not without reason. During Saddam Hussein’s rule, an estimated 500,000 Kurds fled over the border to Turkey (a similar number fled to Iran) and found refuge among Turkey’s Kurdish minority.

Hundreds of years of history further bolsters the Iraqi Kurds’ position. The Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East and its members now live primarily in Iraq, Turkey and Iran, with a small number in Syria. Primarily mountain dwellers, they have their own language, customs, music and native dress. Despite their numbers, they have never had their own country and that reality irks many Kurds to this day, especially in the Kurdish area of Iraq.

Reporting was contributed by Sabrina Tavernise in Amman, Jordan, Sebnem Arsu in Istanbul, Richard A. Oppel Jr. in Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times in Kurdistan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/wo...=1&oref=slogin

Willravel · 10-19-2007, 07:30 AM

Another invasion into Iraq with no timetables, eh?

I'd still like to see evidence one way or the other about the Kurdish attacks on Turkey.

roachboy · 10-20-2007, 08:11 AM

things are becoming curiouser and curiouser.

Quote:

Turkey Expects U.S. to Act Against Kurds

Saturday October 20, 2007 3:46 PM

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - Turkey expects the U.S. to act against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq but will take its own measures if it sees no results in the fight, the prime minister said.

In northern Iraq Saturday, thousands of Kurds packed the streets of a border city to protest a threatened Turkish incursion and to warn they would defend their territory.

Turkey has threatened to cross the Iraqi border to try to wipe out Kurdish rebel bases, arguing it has the right to fight terrorism. The United States and Iraq oppose such unilateral action, fearing it could destabilize northern Iraq, the most stable part of the country.

``We have expectations mainly from the U.S. more than Iraq. We want the coalition forces - mainly the U.S.- to take a step here,'' Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview with the private Kanal 24 TV channel late Friday.

``Our demands from them are known and we will see what happens in time,'' Erdogan said. ``We will put into action our own road map if we do not get the results we want.''

Rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, operate from bases in the mountains of northern Iraq and periodically cross the border to stage attacks in their war for autonomy for Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast. More than 30,000 people have died in the conflict that began in 1984.

The Turkish government secured an authorization from parliament Wednesday to launch a military campaign into Iraq to stamp out the rebels. Turkish leaders have said publicly that they would prefer a solution to the guerrilla problem that avoids a cross-border offensive, but Erdogan has warned that Turkey will take whatever steps it must to defeat the PKK.

Public anger is high in Turkey over a recent spate of guerrilla attacks in the southeast as well as a perception that the United States has failed to back Turkey in its fight with the PKK, even though Washington lists the movement as a terrorist group.

Erdogan said he hoped to reach a consensus with Washington regarding a possible military campaign into northern Iraq during his trip to the U.S. next month.

``We want to get a result especially about this during my meetings on Nov. 5,'' Erdogan said. During the visit, Erdogan is to meet U.S. officials including President Bush.

Protesters in the northern Iraqi city of Zakho accused Turkey of trying to foment unrest in the relatively peaceful autonomous region in northern Iraq.

The demonstrators waved the flag of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region - a yellow sun against red, white and green stripes. They held up banners reading: ``No, no to the Turkish military incursion. Yes, yes to peace and security,'' and ``We will be a shield to defend our cities.''

Hussein Khalid, the mayor of Zakho, some 300 miles northwest of Baghdad, estimated the crowd at about 15,000 people.

``This demonstration represents the anger of the Kurdish community toward the green light that was given to Turkish government by the parliament to invade Kurdistan,'' Khalid said in a telephone interview from another Kurdish city, Sulaimaniyah.

The protesters called on Turkey not to launch cross-border attacks.

``Our peaceful life here is threatened ... as war will bring us only problems and humanitarian crisis,'' said Jelveen Rikani, a 28-year-old government employee among the demonstrators. Turkey wants to turn the Kurdistan region into an unsecured and restive area just like the other parts of Iraq that are mired in chaos and blood.''

There were similar protests in Irbil and another border city Dahuk earlier this week, but Saturday appeared to be the largest demonstration since the Turkish parliament's vote on Wednesday.

Turkish leaders have repeatedly said a military operation - if it is ever launched - would target only the PKK camps in scattered in northern Iraq.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlates...011303,00.html

but they arent exactly waiting around:

Quote:

Iraqis who fled homes in fear face new terror as Turkey targets PKK rebels

Refugees from across the country found peace in the Kurdish north, but are now threatened by shelling and cross-border raids

Michael Howard in Anishky, northern Iraq
Saturday October 20, 2007
The Guardian

When Youssef Toma and his family fled their home in Baghdad's perilous Dora neighbourhood and found refuge in the peaks and valleys of Kurdistan, they assumed their fear had been left behind with their furniture.

With the help of local authorities, Mr Toma, a former manager of an insurance company, had spent the last year building a new house, and life, in Anishky, a village nestling at the foot of the Matin mountains in the bucolic Sabna valley, 13 miles from the Turkish border.

Mr Toma, a deacon in the Assyrian church, and his family soon became active members of the neighbourhood congregation. He took special pride in developing his garden. Standing by a healthy crop of tomatoes this week, he gestured with his trowel at the perimeter walls of a palace Saddam Hussein built for his wife Sajida in the late 70s - a reminder, he said, that the beauty of the region was not just prized by locals.

Last weekend, however, Mr Toma's rural idyll was brutally disrupted. The dread he felt in Baghdad returned. For about 45 terrifying minutes, a barrage of Turkish artillery shells rained down from the clear night sky upon Anishky.

Turkish troops gathered across the border had supposedly been aiming at rebel bases of the Kurdistan Workers party or PKK, believed to be hiding high up in the mountains. They missed.

"Our house was shaking. I told my family it was thunder," said Mr Toma, as he looked at a blackened patch of mountainside about 100 metres behind his house, where a shell had fallen. "But I have lived in Baghdad for 40 years, so I know the sound of bombs. There were 22 of them. We escaped the Islamic terrorists, and now we are terrorised by the Turks. Where else can we run?"

Anishky was not the only village shelled this week. According to Bishop Shlimon in the nearby town of Sersing, at least six other villages in the area, many inhabited by Christian refugees from Baghdad, were affected.

"The bombardment lasted for more than four hours, striking farmlands, killing livestock and destroying orchards and roads used by villagers," he said. "It is a miracle no one was killed."

In the provincial capital of Dohuk, the deputy governor, Gorgees Shlaymoon Kaaee, also a Christian, said that night the area was hit by at least 250 shells. "Our villages have been here for centuries. We have nothing to do with PKK. Yet we are being punished all the same."

The shelling came as the Turkish parliament prepared to sanction cross-border attacks to root out guerrillas from the PKK, which has fought a bloody campaign for Kurdish rights against Turkish forces in the country's heavily Kurdish south-east since 1984. Turkey says 30 soldiers and civilians have been killed in PKK attacks since late September.

Domestic pressure

Under huge domestic pressure to take action, Ankara has deployed about 60,000 troops on its side of the border with Iraq, and has demanded that Iraq's Kurdish leaders, whom it accuses of aiding the PKK, cooperate with Baghdad in eradicating the rebel bases and extraditing PKK leaders. Turkey also accuses the US and the government in Baghdad of not doing enough to crack down on the rebels in Iraqi territory.

Though the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said this week an invasion of northern Iraq was not imminent, Turkish leaders say they reserve the right to protect the country against the rebels it claims are launching attacks from Iraq. The decision was criticised by the international community, who fear an attack would destabilise Iraqi Kurdistan, the country's most secure region. Iraq's Kurdish leaders have urged dialogue and peace.

Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, himself a Kurd, this week demanded the PKK leave Iraqi soil. He predicted any Turkish attacks on northern Iraq would be on a limited scale.

But that is of little comfort to the villagers. They are particularly alarmed by reports that Turkey's generals have drawn up plans to establish a 15-mile buffer zone along the Iraqi side of the border that would include many places where refugees have settled.

Yet the Turks are already here - and have been for over a decade, with the tacit agreement of the Kurdish authorities. At one end of the Sabna valley, a garrison of Turkish soldiers occupies the Barmani airbase. To the east, in the hilltop town of Amediya, a Turkish tank watches from a small outpost. Their role is to monitor the PKK fighters, though the guerrillas are actually far away. "We don't like them to be here, but what can we do?" said Mohsen Qatani, a local tribal chief. "We ignore them and hope they ignore us. It is not our fight."

Bishop Shlimon said an estimated 6,000 Assyrian Christians who have been uprooted by violence elsewhere have found homes along Iraq's northern border with Turkey. The influx has breathed new life into many semi-abandoned rural communities, he said. This week in Anishky, for example, a Christian from Baghdad opened a hall where 1,000 people could gather for weddings.

"But if Turkey continues to raid or bomb us, or even invades," said Bishop Shlimon, "then how will any of us get the peace or the life we are looking for?"

Refugee warning

Local authorities in the Kurdistan region said they feared 30,000 people may be displaced if Turkish troops enter across the border. The UN's high commissioner for refugees, Antonio Guterres, also warned of the danger of a refugee crisis in northern Iraq if Turkey attacks. "The northern governorate, or Kurdistan ... has been the most stable area of Iraq," he said. "It is an area also where you find Iraqis from the south and central Iraq who came seeking security. I can only express our deep concern about any development that might lead to meaningful displacements of population."

In the village of Barnatha, Juliet Jabril, 37, said she missed her life and her hairdressing business in Baghdad, which she left in July.

"There was no alternative but to leave," she said tearfully. First she saw an 11-year-old boy, who was selling petrol on the street outside her salon, shot dead. Then masked men visited her salon and told her that hairdressing "was against the will of Allah".

"I know the fate of other hairdressers," she said. "All I want is to live in peace, and I thought Kurdistan would offer me sanctuary." She said she did not support the PKK's violence, but worried that if they were forced to leave their bases, "it might create space for Islamic militants to come in from Iran".

"And then we'd see the masked men in our beautiful valley," she said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2195573,00.html

mixedmedia · 10-20-2007, 08:28 AM

All this reminds me of post-genocidal Rwanda and it's conflict with Zaire.

The international response to genocide is haphazard at best and the tap-dance of denial by genocidal entities is revoltingly perverse.

Sorry I don't have anything of substance to offer to this thread, but to me it's just another example of how the real world takes on the frivolity of bad drama to the lethal detriment of people who just want to do important things like eat and get out of bed in the morning.

it make you sick - yez, it does.

10-12-2007, 08:06 PM	#6 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	host, I have been trying to understand why this pointless position was brought to a vote today. These things don't happen without some cause or intent in mind, but I can't make any sense of it. Turkey is an important ally in the region, but it is also threatening the Iraqi border. My "follow the money" cynacism tells me that the US is willing to give up an important ally, if Kurdish oil wells might be at risk. Your thoughts? __________________ "You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." Molly Ivins - 1944-2007

10-13-2007, 01:48 PM	#9 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	Thank you, host, for the information you have provided. __________________ "You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." Molly Ivins - 1944-2007

10-20-2007, 08:28 AM	#15 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	All this reminds me of post-genocidal Rwanda and it's conflict with Zaire. The international response to genocide is haphazard at best and the tap-dance of denial by genocidal entities is revoltingly perverse. Sorry I don't have anything of substance to offer to this thread, but to me it's just another example of how the real world takes on the frivolity of bad drama to the lethal detriment of people who just want to do important things like eat and get out of bed in the morning. it make you sick - yez, it does. __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

10-12-2007, 09:10 AM	#2 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Our chaos is spilling over? I can't say I'm surprised. As for the genocide, it happened and denying it is rather horrible, but you're right in that a government that's long since passed was responsible, not the turks specifically. The US thinks that Turkey is thinking about getting directly involved and is threatened because we're already losing and it's already chaos in most regions. If Turkey starts hoping across the border to shit on the Kurds who can't keep to themselves, then it will potentially get all the worse still. The realty, as I see it, though, is that Turkey is local, well organized, and is familiar with the type of desert warfare that we weren't prepared for. Instead of antagonizing them, we should be asking them for help.

10-17-2007, 10:11 PM	#10 (permalink)
Locobot is awesome!	Regarding the Turkish troops massing at the border: the U.S. needs to show a little more backbone here. Iraqi Kurds don't seem to hold much sway with the central government and even if they did, any deployment of the Iraqi army would be indistinguishable from U.S. forces (same uniforms, equipment, officers etc.). The U.S. should make clear that any incursion into Northern Iraq will not be tolerated and will result in Turkey being immediately expelled from NATO. Having two NATO countries in open conflict would undermine the premise of that treaty and make it meaningless. Turkey sees the Iraqi Kurds as being in a weak position and they think the U.S. forces are stretched too thin to retaliate. They're in a position to make an opportunistic land grab in Northern Iraq. On the other hand the Kurdish separatist PKK is almost certainly using Kurd-controlled Northern Iraq as a launching pad for terrorist attacks. It's a conundrum.

10-19-2007, 07:30 AM	#13 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Another invasion into Iraq with no timetables, eh? I'd still like to see evidence one way or the other about the Kurdish attacks on Turkey.