Dar Al Hayat
Turkey fought a bitter war against the PKK from 1984 to 1999 which resulted in 35,000 dead and the displacement of some 2 million. On both sides, memories of this war are very fresh, and there is great reluctance to see it break out again. The argument on the Turkish side is that a decisive campaign against the PKK is the best way to prevent its recurrence.
What seems certain, however, is that a Turkish assault on northern Iraq would deal a serious blow to Turkey's already frayed relations with the United States, further destabilize the fragile American-backed government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad, and possibly put Turkey's own economic growth at risk.
On the other hand, a war against the PKK could yield political benefits for Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he prepares for general elections on 22 July. It could heal tensions between his moderately Islamic government and the army chiefs, who are eager for a showdown with the PKK. It could also blunt the attacks on him from the ultra-secular and ultra-nationalist Kemalist opposition.
A key legacy of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, was the defence of the 'territorial integrity' of the new Turkey, which he rescued in the early 1920s from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire defeated in the First World War. Ottoman domains had suffered repeated and large-scale plundering by the Great Powers throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ataturk was determined that no one would ever again be allowed to take a bite out of Turkish territory.
[...]An autonomous Kurdish 'statelet' has already taken shape. It is now actively seeking, by an official plebiscite, to incorporate Kirkuk and is rich oil-rich region, into its domain. For Turkey, this is a red rag to a bull, because the absorption of Kirkuk would give the Kurds the economic means for full independence.
Erdogan's immediate dilemma is this: whether to authorize a military attack on the PKK in Iraq and risk a breach not only with the U.S., but also with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government of northern Iraq under its president Mas'ud Barzani and with the Maliki government in Iraq; or fail to attack the PKK and face damaging accusations from the armed forces and from secular nationalists of capitulating to Kurdish 'separatism.'
Many observers believe the odds are that he will in the coming weeks authorize an attack. Some 150,000 Turkish troops with tanks and artillery have been massing on the border with Iraq. Mine-clearing operations on the Iraqi side of the border have been underway for several weeks, while Turkish Special Forces, often in civilian clothes, are said to have penetrated some 20 to 40 kilometers inside Iraq to prepare the ground for an attack and seal off PKK escape routes in the mountains.
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