KurdistanObserver.com
Appeasing The Terrorist State of Turkey,
Bush Is Ready to Betray The Kurds In Southern Kurdistan
By James Cogan
7 February 2008
WSWS
In the early hours of Monday morning, as many as 20 Turkish jets invaded Iraqi
airspace and bombed 11 locations in Iraqi Kurdistan where fighters of the
separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) were alleged to be sheltering. The PKK
has been conducting a guerilla war against the Turkish government for over two
decades, often using the rugged, Kurdish-populated terrain where the borders of
Turkey, Iraq and Iran intersect as a base of operations.
At least 70 targets were struck, according to the Turkish air force. Its
statement claimed the PKK presence had been “detected and verified by
intelligence sources”—suggesting that the US military occupation forces inside
Iraq had provided satellite and other information. The press release contained
the worthless assurance that “utmost sensitivity was shown so that the civilian
population in the region was not affected”.
The attack is the fifth air raid on Iraqi territory ordered by the Turkish
government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan since December 16. The Turkish
military claimed that the preceding raids had killed at least 175 PKK fighters
and severely disrupted PKK supply lines. Kurdish sources reported dozens of
civilian deaths and thousands of refugees fleeing from the targeted areas.
A PKK spokesman and representatives of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in
Iraqi Kurdistan reported that the latest bombings caused no casualties and took
place against the “uninhabited hamlets of Khorakouk, Khnira and Loulan in the
Qandil mountains”, in the Iraqi province of Irbil. KRG spokesman Jaba Yawar told
the New York Times “there was no damage because this area had been deserted
because of tensions”.
Whether the villages were inhabited or not, the attack is a direct consequence
of the Bush administration’s encouragement of escalating Turkish attacks on
Kurdish rebels inside Iraq. The raids were preceded by high-level talks on the
PKK between Turkish and American diplomats and officers.
On January 29, the Turkish Daily News reported: “General Ergin Saygun, deputy
chief of the Turkish General Staff, will hold talks with General James
Cartwright, vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, later this week
mainly to discuss intelligence sharing between the United States and the Turkish
Armed Forces in the fight against PKK, officials said. Saygun is also expected
to meet US Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman and General John Craddock,
commander of US forces in Europe (EUCOM) and supreme commander of NATO Allied
Forces in Europe, as part of anti-PKK talks.”
Coinciding with the talks in Washington and just days before the raid, US
ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson told journalists on January 31: “Logically,
anything that can be done to fracture the PKK and take away its militants is a
good thing. How to do this is something for the Turkish government to decide.”
At a Pentagon media briefing on February 5, press secretary Geoff Morrell left
no doubt over US backing. “With regards to recent Turkish air strikes on PKK
terrorist positions within Iraq”, he said, “I think our position on that matter
has not changed. We view this as a matter of self defence for the Turks and we
are confident that they will continue to exercise good discretion in how they go
about taking out this threat, and do so in full coordination and consultation
with us.”
The US collaboration with Turkey against the PKK has developed alongside
indications that the Bush administration may also align with Ankara to oppose
Iraqi Kurdish ambitions to control the oil-rich area around the city of Kirkuk.
The Turkish ruling elite believes that an Iraqi Kurdish region with substantial
energy resources at its disposal would encourage Kurdish nationalist agitation
across the region for a unified Kurdish nation-state including large swathes of
territory in eastern Turkey, northern Syria and western Iran.
In the initial years of the US occupation, Washington encouraged Kurdish
ambitions by including a December 2007 deadline for a referendum over Kirkuk’s
future status in the US-drafted Iraqi constitution. As the deadline approached,
however, the US occupation did not support KRG demands that the Iraqi parliament
honour the constitution. The vote was postponed and no new date has been agreed.
US policy is bound up with broader geo-political considerations in the Middle
East. Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance and a key US ally, is emerging as
the major regional power, actively pursuing its own interests. Washington has
viewed with particular concern the closer military, economic and political
relations that are developing between Turkey and the Iranian regime, to which
the Bush administration is deeply hostile.
Last July, in defiance of US opposition, Turkey signed a deal with Iran to build
pipelines for Iranian and Turkomen natural gas and struck another agreement for
a $3.5 billion Turkish investment to develop three new Iranian gas fields. Over
ensuring months, Turkey and Iran held high-level diplomatic exchanges even as a
US fleet positioned itself in the Persian Gulf for a possible attack against
Tehran. The US response has been to try to woo Ankara and isolate Iran by
backing Turkish attacks in US-occupied Iraq and signalling its preparedness to
sacrifice Kurdish interests in Iraq.
The shifting US attitude toward the Iraqi Kurdish nationalists was embodied in a
lengthy article in January by Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise
Institute—a thinktank closely linked to the Bush administration and
vice-president Dick Cheney in particular. Rubin denounced the KRG leadership as
anti-democratic and corrupt and declared that its president Massoud Barzani,
“enables—if not sponsors—PKK terrorism against Turkey”.
Rubin concluded: “Barzani may remain an ally, but he has disqualified himself
from any substantive partnership. It is time to take a tough-love approach to
Iraqi Kurdistan. There should be no aid and no diplomatic legitimacy so long as
Iraqi Kurdistan remains a PKK safe haven, sells US security to the highest
bidder and leaves democratic reform stagnant.”
In the face of US pressure, Barzani and the KRG have fallen into line, accepting
the deferral of the Kirkuk referendum and dropping any criticisms of Turkish
incursions into Iraq. In fact, there are indications that the KRG has begun
assisting the attacks on the PKK in order to appease Washington.
A comment in the February 5 Wall Street Journal noted that the KRG armed forces
have established checkpoints in the Qandil mountains to limit goods reaching
guerilla camps and are detaining PKK financiers and couriers. The KRG is also
blocking journalists from travelling to the PKK-occupied areas, in order to
prevent firsthand reports on the impact of the Turkish airstrikes.
Barzani and the KRG prime minister, his nephew Nechirvan Barzani, have not
issued any statement protesting the latest air raid. But the stepped-up Turkish
campaign against the PKK is stoking discontent among the broader Kurdish
population in both Iraq and Turkey.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, the sentiment is growing that Washington is once again
betraying Kurdish nationalist aspirations in order to preserve the US alliance
with Turkey. American policy is being compared with 1975, when the US supported
the Iraqi Baathist regime in suppressing a Kurdish rebellion, and 1991, when the
first Bush administration called for a Kurdish uprising and then stood back as
Saddam Hussein’s forces brutally crushed it.
In Turkey, the Kurdish-based Democratic Society Party (DTP) responded to the
latest air strikes by calling for its supporters to assemble on February 6 in
the city of Diyarbakir and march on the Turkish-Iraqi border town of Kasrik to
protest over the intensification of military operations. According to the
newspaper Zaman, groups attempting to reach the protest from 28 Turkish cities
faced harassment from police. Some 6,000 were expected to reach the Kasrik area
for Tuesday’s 24-hour demonstration, but only 1,000 were able to do so.
