Turkish Election Leans the Army Away from Iraq

TURKEY’S mildly Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has won an impressive election for a second term. This would appear to enhance the future of Turkish democracy and away from a military coop. Turkey would also appear to be headed towards membership talks with the European Union (EU).

Erdogan’s party had won 47% of the vote—a dramatic 12-point rise from the 34% that got him to office in 2002. Laying claim to 340 of the 550 seats in parliament the AK party can comfortably form a government alone. But it failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to amend the country's authoritarian constitution, drawn up by the armed forces when they last seized power in 1980.


With all of the ballots counted unofficial results suggested that Mr Erdogan’s party had won 47% of the vote—a dramatic 12-point rise from the 34% that got him to office in 2002. Laying claim to 340 of the 550 seats in parliament the AK party can comfortably form a government alone. But it failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to amend the country's authoritarian constitution, drawn up by the armed forces when they last seized power in 1980.


[..]The other big challenge facing the government is the upsurge in Kurdish separatist violence in the southeastern provinces bordering Iran and Iraq. The army has been backed by the CHP and the MHP in calls for a cross-border operation against some 3,500 rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq. A large invasion would damage Turkey's relations with America and the EU and could scare foreign investors who control 70% of the shares traded by the Istanbul stock exchange. Worse, Turkey could get mired in conflict in Iraq. It will take all of Mr Erdogan's skills to resist pressure to go into Iraq. He will need all the help he can get from America to get the Iraqi Kurdish leadership to clamp down on the PKK.

However, the Turkish, Iranian border is like northern Pakistan. It's heavily mountainous limiting the usefulness of heavy armor and sports many hiding places for guerrilla fighters. The Turkish army may well bog down in a quagmire in Iraq.
AlterNet

Hiding in the high mountains and deep gorges of one of the world's great natural fortresses are bands of guerrillas whose presence could provoke a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq and the next war in the Middle East.


After the election, Ankara may find it impossible to retreat from the bellicose rhetoric of recent weeks and will send its troops across the border, even if the incursion is only on a limited scale.


[..]If the Turkish army does invade, it will not find it easy to locate the PKK guerrillas. Their main headquarters is in the Qandil mountains which are on the Iranian border but conveniently close to Turkey. It is an area extraordinarily well-adapted for guerrilla warfare where even Saddam Hussein's armies found it impossible to penetrate.


[..]The scale of the fighting is small. Pejak launches sporadic raids into Iranian Kurdistan. The PKK stages ambushes and bombings in Turkey and has escalated its attacks this year, killing at least 67 soldiers and losing 110 of its own fighters according to the Turkish authorities. But this limited skirmishing could have an explosive impact. The attacks provide an excuse for Turkish action against an increasingly independent Iraqi Kurdish state. "They [the Turks] want an excuse to overturn what has been achieved in Iraqi Kurdistan," says Mr Dezayee. A referendum is to be held in northern Iraq by the end of 2007 under which the oil city of Kirkuk may vote to join the KRG. The incentive for a Turkish invasion is growing by the day.


"Everything depends on the result of the Turkish election," says Dr Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Iraqi Kurdish politician.


If the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wins a two-thirds majority then the pressure for an invasion may be off. But if he believes he lost votes because his anti-PKK and Turkish nationalist credentials were not strong enough then he might want to burnish them by ordering a cross border incursion.


The lightly armed PKK, knowing every inch of the mountainous terrain at Qandil, will be able to evade Turkish troops. But the Iraqi Kurds worry that they and not the PKK are the real target of the Turkish army. After making so many threats before the election, Turkey may find it difficult to back off without looking weak.