Turkey weighs cross-border attack on PKK separatists
By Vincent Boland and Guy Dinmore
Published: February 1 2007 02:00 Last updated: February 1 2007 02:00
Turkey made a decisive contribution to the Iraq war nearly four years ago when the parliament in Ankara rejected a US request to allow an invasion from the north. The military impact of this decision belongs to the "What if...?" school of history.
The diplomatic fallout is still casting a shadow over the US-Turkish relationship. Now Turkey could be about to make a second dramatic contribution.
Amid constant bloody clashes between Turkish troops and PKK Kurdish separatist guerrillas operating out of northern Iraq, Ankara is weighing up a cross-border incursion to attack PKK bases. Turkey, its political leaders insist, has the right and the determination to eliminate threats to its territory wherever they come from.
General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the general staff, is expected to set out Turkey's concerns over Iraq when he visits Washington later this month. One possible outcome intended to guard against a unilateral Turkish intervention would be a joint anti-PKK military operation with US and Iraqi forces, says an analyst who asked not to be named.
Turkey is also becoming alarmed by what it claims is electoral and demographic gerrymandering by Iraqi Kurds in Kirkuk, the oil capital of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Ankara fears that Kurdish control of Kirkuk would give the Iraqi Kurds the economic basis for independence if Iraq were to break up.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, and other Turkish leaders have warned repeatedly that the gerrymandering threatens to make a fait accompli of a referendum on Kirkuk's status later this year that Turkey will not tolerate. Turkey is increasingly identifying with the Turkmen minority in the city, which Ankara believes is being ill treated by the Kurds.
Some see the danger of fighting erupting in Kirkuk. This would complicate US plans to "surge" troops into Baghdad, commented Glen Howard, head of the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington security think-tank.
"The Turks are now signalling that they are going to arm the Iraqi Turkmen as the Kurds refuse to back off on the [Kirkuk] referendum," he commented.
Some of the talk in Turkey is election-year rhetoric: no Turkish politician ever lost votes by being tough on Kurdish separatism.
But diplomats and analysts say the debate is also serious. A military strike into northern Iraq - with or without the consent of the US - is militarily and politically possible, perhaps even probable, some believe.
A senior retired Turkish diplomat, with extensive knowledge of the political and military calculations involved in such a decision, said military planning was not as far advanced as public statements from politicians suggested.
"This is not an easy decision to take, even though we are entitled by international law to undertake such a mission," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
"We have to ask ourselves whether it would achieve our objectives, would it satisfy public opinion, what impact it would have on our international relations."
The debate among the Turkish leadership, hesaid, "is hot, but the thinking is not yet at that stage [of military intervention]".
In 2006, the US and Turkish governments each appointed a retired general - Gen Joseph Ralston of the US and Gen Edip Baser of Turkey - as "PKK co-ordinators" to develop a strategy to target the separatists in northern Iraq. But last month Mr Erdogan branded the initiative "a failure", without quite specifying how it had failed.
The two generals met senior politicians in Ankara this week and the initiative appears to be still on track.
Mr Erdogan's remark, nonetheless, indicated Turkey's impatience with the apparent impunity with which the PKK is acting and the inability of the overstretched US and Iraqi military to crack down on the separatists in Iraq's most stable region.
Turkey is home to 15m ethnic Kurds, some of whom openly sympathise with the PKK. It fought a long war against the PKK in the 1980s and 1990s, which cost at least 35,000 lives. After that conflict petered out and its leadership was captured, the PKK disappeared into the Iraqi mountains to launch periodic attacks on Turkish soil.
Nicholas Burns, US undersecretary of state, said in Ankara recently the US had "enormous sympathy" with Turkey's stance on the PKK, but he suggested Ankara needed to work more closely with Baghdad rather than undertake unilateral moves.
Diplomats say Ankara should be spreading largesse among the Kurdish communities, instead of threatening to disrupt the referendum process in Kirkuk. Others say Turkey's entire Iraq strategy - such as it is - will fail unless it wins the hearts and minds of the Iraqi Kurds.
Sahin Alpay, an academic and commentator, wrote this week: "The most effective way for Ankara to achieve its objectives in Iraq is to win the trust and friendship of the Iraqi Kurds."
Additional reporting Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: February 1 2007 02:00 Last updated: February 1 2007 02:00
Turkey made a decisive contribution to the Iraq war nearly four years ago when the parliament in Ankara rejected a US request to allow an invasion from the north. The military impact of this decision belongs to the "What if...?" school of history.
The diplomatic fallout is still casting a shadow over the US-Turkish relationship. Now Turkey could be about to make a second dramatic contribution.
Amid constant bloody clashes between Turkish troops and PKK Kurdish separatist guerrillas operating out of northern Iraq, Ankara is weighing up a cross-border incursion to attack PKK bases. Turkey, its political leaders insist, has the right and the determination to eliminate threats to its territory wherever they come from.
General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the general staff, is expected to set out Turkey's concerns over Iraq when he visits Washington later this month. One possible outcome intended to guard against a unilateral Turkish intervention would be a joint anti-PKK military operation with US and Iraqi forces, says an analyst who asked not to be named.
Turkey is also becoming alarmed by what it claims is electoral and demographic gerrymandering by Iraqi Kurds in Kirkuk, the oil capital of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Ankara fears that Kurdish control of Kirkuk would give the Iraqi Kurds the economic basis for independence if Iraq were to break up.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, and other Turkish leaders have warned repeatedly that the gerrymandering threatens to make a fait accompli of a referendum on Kirkuk's status later this year that Turkey will not tolerate. Turkey is increasingly identifying with the Turkmen minority in the city, which Ankara believes is being ill treated by the Kurds.
Some see the danger of fighting erupting in Kirkuk. This would complicate US plans to "surge" troops into Baghdad, commented Glen Howard, head of the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington security think-tank.
"The Turks are now signalling that they are going to arm the Iraqi Turkmen as the Kurds refuse to back off on the [Kirkuk] referendum," he commented.
Some of the talk in Turkey is election-year rhetoric: no Turkish politician ever lost votes by being tough on Kurdish separatism.
But diplomats and analysts say the debate is also serious. A military strike into northern Iraq - with or without the consent of the US - is militarily and politically possible, perhaps even probable, some believe.
A senior retired Turkish diplomat, with extensive knowledge of the political and military calculations involved in such a decision, said military planning was not as far advanced as public statements from politicians suggested.
"This is not an easy decision to take, even though we are entitled by international law to undertake such a mission," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
"We have to ask ourselves whether it would achieve our objectives, would it satisfy public opinion, what impact it would have on our international relations."
The debate among the Turkish leadership, hesaid, "is hot, but the thinking is not yet at that stage [of military intervention]".
In 2006, the US and Turkish governments each appointed a retired general - Gen Joseph Ralston of the US and Gen Edip Baser of Turkey - as "PKK co-ordinators" to develop a strategy to target the separatists in northern Iraq. But last month Mr Erdogan branded the initiative "a failure", without quite specifying how it had failed.
The two generals met senior politicians in Ankara this week and the initiative appears to be still on track.
Mr Erdogan's remark, nonetheless, indicated Turkey's impatience with the apparent impunity with which the PKK is acting and the inability of the overstretched US and Iraqi military to crack down on the separatists in Iraq's most stable region.
Turkey is home to 15m ethnic Kurds, some of whom openly sympathise with the PKK. It fought a long war against the PKK in the 1980s and 1990s, which cost at least 35,000 lives. After that conflict petered out and its leadership was captured, the PKK disappeared into the Iraqi mountains to launch periodic attacks on Turkish soil.
Nicholas Burns, US undersecretary of state, said in Ankara recently the US had "enormous sympathy" with Turkey's stance on the PKK, but he suggested Ankara needed to work more closely with Baghdad rather than undertake unilateral moves.
Diplomats say Ankara should be spreading largesse among the Kurdish communities, instead of threatening to disrupt the referendum process in Kirkuk. Others say Turkey's entire Iraq strategy - such as it is - will fail unless it wins the hearts and minds of the Iraqi Kurds.
Sahin Alpay, an academic and commentator, wrote this week: "The most effective way for Ankara to achieve its objectives in Iraq is to win the trust and friendship of the Iraqi Kurds."
Additional reporting Guy Dinmore in Washington
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