Turkey mainly, Iraq and the Kurds (2006-2012)

[SWJED]

6 June AP - Turkish Officials: Troops Enter Iraq.

Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who operate from bases there, Turkish security officials told The Associated Press.

Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the raid was limited in scope and that it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks.

"It is not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands," one of the officials told the AP by telephone. The official is based in southeast Turkey, where the military has been battling separatist Kurdish rebels since they took up arms in 1984.

The U.S. military said it could not confirm the reports but was "very concerned."

The last major Turkish incursion into northern Iraq was in 1997, when about 50,000 troops were sent to the region...

[Abu Buckwheat]

... tie this into the small altercation yesterday between Prime minsiter Maliki and President Hashemi (a Sunni) who said (believeing he had been accused of cooperating with insurgents) 'Maybe I should quit' or something to that effect ... would this incursion coupled along with the stagnation in the government be a reason for the KDP/PUK to consider taking their three trained Iraqi Army Divisions, reform the Peshmerga and declare a Kurdish state?

[tequila]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Tariq al-Hashimi is a Sunni Arab from the Iraqi Islamic Party, not a Kurd from the north.

I agree that this is not good. I think everything, including Kurdish response, depends on the size and actions of this force, especially how long they intend to stay.

[Abu Buckwheat]

Originally Posted by tequila

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Tariq al-Hashimi is a Sunni Arab from the Iraqi Islamic Party, not a Kurd from the north.

I agree that this is not good. I think everything, including Kurdish response, depends on the size and actions of this force, especially how long they intend to stay.

Belay my last... you are correct. Can't tell players without a score card ... I really gotta stop posting in my sleep because I thought it was talibani he got into it with but hey, its night over here ya know.

[Abu Buckwheat]

Seems it was just another of their usual small SOF raids against the PKK.

Jabar Yawir, deputy minister for Peshmerga Affairs in Kurdistan, said: "This afternoon 10 Turkish helicopters landed in a village in Mazouri, which is ... 3 km (2 miles) inside the Iraqi border. They landed with around 150 Turkish special forces."

"After two hours they left and there were no confrontations with the PKK," he told Reuters. He said the village was in a PKK-controlled area.

[SWJED]

8 June NY Times - Turkey Rattles Its Sabers at Militant Kurds in Iraq by Sabrina Tavernise.

Turkey is stepping up its presence along its border with Iraq to levels not seen in years in an effort to root out Kurdish separatist guerrillas who take refuge in northern Iraq...

And while reports this week of a large Turkish military push into Iraq seem to be untrue, the army is acting with greater urgency here in the southeast, home to a large part of the Kurdish minority, which accounts for one-fifth of Turkey’s population.

On Wednesday the military announced that it was establishing “security zones” in three districts, including Sirnak, east of here, a step reminiscent of emergency rule imposed on this area until 2002 in an effort to destroy a militant group of Kurdish separatists...

[SWJED]

8 June NY Times editorial - A New Danger in Iraq.

Absolutely the last thing Iraq needs right now is to have thousands of Turkish troops pour across the border into the country’s one relatively peaceful region — the Kurdish-administered northeast. Turkey’s government needs to know that it will reap nothing but disaster if that happens...

Turkey does have a real problem. Guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K., have been striking into Turkey from their bases in Iraqi Kurdistan with growing impunity and effect, using plastic explosives, mines and arms that are readily accessible in Iraq.

These strikes have roused powerful passions in Turkey, stoked by generals eager to regain their primacy over the civilian government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which military leaders loathe for its roots in Islamic politics. So far, Turkish forces have occasionally chased P.K.K. rebels into Iraq, but they have always withdrawn.

Turkey’s feud with the P.K.K. is inextricably tied to other conflicts and rivalries inside Iraq. The most directly relevant is the tug of war between the Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens over the oil-rich region of Kirkuk. Ankara’s fear of fears is that a quasi-independent, Kurdish statelet on its borders could embolden Turkey’s 15 million-strong Kurdish minority to demand autonomy or independence...

[wm]

Is anyone looking into the possibility that these latest PKK activities might really be the work of poseurs? Why could this not be the work of agents provacateurs who are acting like PKK terrorists in order to stir the pot in the region and distract the Coalition from continuing to do other things further south that may be on the verge of being successful?

Among other things that make me ask this question are the following.
--Have not allegations been made about clandestine Turkish-Iranian cooperation to deal with what each perceives as the "problem" of their Kurdish minorities, especially in light of the improved status of the Kurds in northern Iraq?
--If, as some allege, the Iranians are in fact stirring up the Shi'a-Sunni violence in the south, why would they not be employing a similar tactic between Kurds and Turks up north?
Getting answers to questions like these would be part of my priority intelligence requirements were I in charge of trying to achieve peace and stability in the region.

[Steve Blair]

The Turks have also been having something of a governmental crisis if memory serves. The timing of this is a bit interesting.

[goesh]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6718965.stm

7 Turks Killed in rebel raid (6/4/07)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6687631.stm

Turkish soldiers killed in blast

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6684549.stm

Suicide attack behind Turkey bomb
(please, no puns on this headline)

[Culpeper]

Well, the Turkish people should have been more careful with what they once wished for? I wonder if it was elements of the Turkish 4th Infantry Division and they had "Red Dawn" painted on their helmets. Or maybe it was the Kurds in Turkey that now refer to themselves as "Wolverines!"....Pun intended@!

[Tacitus]

Originally Posted by Steve Blair

The Turks have also been having something of a governmental crisis if memory serves. The timing of this is a bit interesting.

I believe you are correct. There is a conflict between the Army, which sees itself as the guarantor of the modern secular state, founded by Ataturk and an Islamic inspired party in power.

This link to a BBC story describes the conflict:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6615627.stm

I think there have been some high profile murders there of journalists or writers, accused of insulting Turkey's honor. This is a crime in Turkey. I can't recall if the perpreators were Turkish nationalists or Islamic guerillas.
Here's a link to a story about this development:
http://regardlessoffrontiers.org/200...n-insult-laws/

I know the EU has balked on admitting Turkey into their union. At first I read that this angered the Turks, then later I read the Islamists there were praising it because they wanted nothing to do with uniting with a bunch of heathens, anyway.

Clearly, there is political unrest there. Would the Turkish army start a war with the Kurds to unify a divided country around an external enemy? Needless to say, this doesn't make things any easier for our efforts in Iraq.

[Firestaller]

Originally Posted by wm

Is anyone looking into the possibility that these latest PKK activities might really be the work of poseurs? Why could this not be the work of agents provacateurs who are acting like PKK terrorists in order to stir the pot in the region and distract the Coalition from continuing to do other things further south that may be on the verge of being successful?

Among other things that make me ask this question are the following.
--Have not allegations been made about clandestine Turkish-Iranian cooperation to deal with what each perceives as the "problem" of their Kurdish minorities, especially in light of the improved status of the Kurds in northern Iraq?
--If, as some allege, the Iranians are in fact stirring up the Shi'a-Sunni violence in the south, why would they not be employing a similar tactic between Kurds and Turks up north?
Getting answers to questions like these would be part of my priority intelligence requirements were I in charge of trying to achieve peace and stability in the region.

The conflicts between Turkey and the PKK have been going on since the 80's. There's no doubt in my mind that the Kurds want their own country and with 14 million Kurds living in Turkey ... they probably want to 'secede' a section of Turkey and join their brethrens in Kurdistan.

In Turkey, where the government has long attempted to suppress Kurdish culture, fighting erupted in the mid-1980s, mainly in SE Turkey, between government forces and guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which was established in 1984. The PKK has also engaged in terrorist attacks. In 1992 the Turkish government again mounted a concerted attack on its Kurdish minority, killing more than 20,000 and creating about two million refugees. In 1995, Turkey waged a military campaign against PKK base camps in northern Iraq, and in 1999 it captured the guerrillas' leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who was subsequently condemned to death. Some 23,000–30,000 people are thought to have died in the 15-year war. The legal People's Democracy party is now the principal civilian voice of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey. The PKK announced in Feb., 2000, that they would end their attacks, but the arrest the same month of the Kurdish mayors of Diyarbakir and other towns on charges of aiding the rebels threatened to revive the unrest. Reforms passed in 2002 and 2003 to facilitate Turkish entrance in the European Union included ending bans on private education in Kurdish and on giving children Kurdish names; also, emergency rule in SE Turkey was ended. However, in 2004, following Turkish actions against it, the PKK—renamed Kongra-Gel (the Kurdistan People's Congress—announced that it would end the cease-fire and resumed its attacks. In 2006 there was renewed fighting with Kurdish rebels and outbreaks of civil unrest involving Kurds; an offshoot of the PKK also mounted bomb attacks in a number of Turkish cities. In Sept., 2006, however, the PKK unilaterally declared a cease-fire.

[Steve Blair]

Originally Posted by Tacitus

I believe you are correct. There is a conflict between the Army, which sees itself as the guarantor of the modern secular state, founded by Ataturk and an Islamic inspired party in power.

This link to a BBC story describes the conflict:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6615627.stm

I think there have been some high profile murders there of journalists or writers, accused of insulting Turkey's honor. This is a crime in Turkey. I can't recall if the perpreators were Turkish nationalists or Islamic guerillas.
Here's a link to a story about this development:
http://regardlessoffrontiers.org/200...n-insult-laws/

I know the EU has balked on admitting Turkey into their union. At first I read that this angered the Turks, then later I read the Islamists there were praising it because they wanted nothing to do with uniting with a bunch of heathens, anyway.

Clearly, there is political unrest there. Would the Turkish army start a war with the Kurds to unify a divided country around an external enemy? Needless to say, this doesn't make things any easier for our efforts in Iraq.

Another possibility is that someone else is sparking the conflict to distract attention (both within the Turkish army and the country at large) from the political crisis. Who has the most to gain from such a distraction? That, of course, is my "black helicopter" look at it.

[wm]

Originally Posted by Steve Blair

Another possibility is that someone else is sparking the conflict to distract attention (both within the Turkish army and the country at large) from the political crisis. Who has the most to gain from such a distraction? That, of course, is my "black helicopter" look at it.

That was my point in the question I raised in post #8 to this thread.

[SWJED]

13 June AP - Kurdish Rebels Declare Cease-Fire in Turkey by Selcan Hacaoglu.

Kurdish separatist rebels declared a "unilateral cease-fire" Tuesday in attacks against Turkey and said they were ready for peace negotiations, but the group maintained the right to defend itself.

The statement came as the Turkish military has been building up its forces along the border with Iraq, threatening to stage a major incursion to pursue Kurdish rebels at their bases. Such an operation could ignite a wider conflict involving Iraqi Kurds and draw in the United States...

[Jedburgh]

The Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Focus, 26 Jun 07:

PKK Introduces Use of IEDs Against Turkish Targets

The casualties suffered since the beginning of June in Turkey's military operations against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members in its southeast region provide a disturbing illustration of the spread of technology and techniques among terrorist groups. Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) have been used by the PKK with deadly effect, killing both Turkish troops and civilians. In recent years, there has been a shift in PKK strategy; the organization now seems to prefer the use of IEDs over direct armed attacks against the Turkish military. More than 30 such attacks by the PKK have been carried out in the past six months alone....

The title is a bit misleading; it should really be "increases", since it's been quite a while since IEDs were "introduced" to the conflict in SE Turkey. And to those intimately involved with Iraq, 30 IED attacks spread over six months seems a ridiculously low number. But despite the relatively low simmering-on-the-back-burner threat it poses to the state, the insurgency in Turkey's southeast is also an integral part of the political struggle being played out between the Turkish military and the ruling AK party, and each casualty-producing attack thus has ripple effects far beyond the original intent of those who emplaced the device.

[T. Jefferson]

Turkey has 140,000 troops on Iraq border, foreign minister says

“Turkey is building up forces on the border. There are 140,000 soldiers fully armed on the border. We are against any military interference or violation of Iraqi sovereignty," Zebari said during a news conference in Baghdad.

Turkey has been pressuring the United States and Iraq to eliminate PKK bases in Kurdish-controlled parts of northern Iraq and has said it's ready to stage a cross-border offensive if necessary.

Zebari said that any problem should be solved through dialogue adding that "Turkey's fears are legitimate but such things can be discussed."
"The Iraqi government try to diffuse the situation," said Zebari, a Kurd from northern Iraq. "The perfect solution is the withdrawal of the Turkish forces from the borders."

"No one wants a new military conflict in the region. These matters should be solved through dialogue and direct negotiations ... there hasn't been any Turkish military violation until now. There are some artillery shelling and some surveillance by Turkish plane."

Turkey has long complained of U.S. inaction against separatist rebels, who have escalated attacks inside Turkey in recent months. Last week, Turkey's military chief asked the government to set political guidelines for an incursion into northern Iraq.

[SteveMetz]

Originally Posted by T. Jefferson

Turkey has 140,000 troops on Iraq border, foreign minister says

In turnabout is fair play for 2003, I think we ought to promise them to resolve the problem and then at the last minute change our mind.

[wm]

Originally Posted by SteveMetz

In turnabout is fair play for 2003, I think we ought to promise them to resolve the problem and then at the last minute change our mind.

Revoking our support to the Turks worked real well when they invaded Cyprus in 1974.
By the way, I don't think we have anything like the Habur Gate or a twisty little road from the Mediterranean to the Turkey-Iraq border that we can close to the Turks, or do we?