Does Turkey Have Plans to Invade Iraq (Southern
Kurdistan)?
Turkish Prime Minister Won't Talk Strategy, but Troops Have Been Deployed to
Border
By
TERRY McCARTHY
May 31, 2007
ABC News
Just when it looked like things in Iraq
couldn't get worse, a new threat is emerging -- from Turkey. And it's creating a
huge headache for U.S. policymakers.
Impatient at continued attacks against Turkey
by the Kurdish guerilla group PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party), whose members are
based mostly in northern Iraq, Turkey has moved troops and tanks close to the
border with Iraq. Iraqi newspapers have expressed concerns that Turkey may be
planning to cross the border in pursuit of the PKK guerrillas.
The PKK, which the United States has designated
a terrorist organization, has conducted a low-level guerrilla war against Turkey
since 1984.
Last week, a suicide bomber in Ankara, the
capital, killed six people. The government said it was the work of the PKK. And
a bomb in southeastern Turkey, where the PKK is most active, killed six Turkish
soldiers.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
said this week, "We want all acts of the terrorist organization to come to an
end." When asked if Turkey would invade Iraq, Erdogan said, "One does not talk
about whether these kinds of operations will take place or not, it would simply
be carried out."
Some of Erdogan's rhetoric may be political
posturing -- he faces an election in July and needs to appear tough on
terrorism. But underneath the current tension is a bigger problem -- the growing
autonomy of Iraq's 4 million Kurds.
The Turkish government fears that if Iraqi
Kurdistan became quasi-independent in an otherwise disintegrating Iraq, many of
the 15 to 20 million ethnic Kurds in southeastern Turkey might try to annex
themselves to a newly emerging Kurdish state. Kurds are also a minority in
northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria.
The Kurdish regional government in Iraq has
said it does not want independence -- and says it does not support the PKK. But
it continues to push for a referendum due to be held by the end of 2007 to
decide whether the oil-rich city of Kirkuk should become part of the Kurdish
region or remain as part of the rest of Iraq. Were the Kurds to win this
referendum, Turkey would see that as a move to win economic self-sufficiency and
hence independence on the part of the Kurds.
The problem for the United States is that both Turkey and the Kurds
are close U.S. allies. Turkey is a NATO member, and the Kurdish part of Iraq is
the only peaceful area in the country and very pro-American. Border fighting
between Turkey and Kurdish Iraq is the last thing the United States wants now as
it struggles to pacify the rest of the country.
U.S. officials told ABC News there has been
strong lobbying behind the scenes as the Turks and the Kurds try to calm
tensions. This is one problem the United States doesn't need.
